


In the Shadow of Armistice

by superheroresin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Middle Earth Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dunedain Bucky Barnes, Dwarf Tony Stark, Elf James Rhodes, Elf Steve Rogers, Inspired by The Lord of the Rings, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Lord Of The Rings AU, M/M, Mind Control, Past Mind Control, Post-War of the Ring, Swords & Sorcery, The Lord of the Rings References, Ungoliant Natasha Romanoff, Wizard Ultron, Wizard Vision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:50:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 63,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superheroresin/pseuds/superheroresin
Summary: Sedryn Amathion is a young Ñoldor elf born of lower Himring near the end of the harrowed Second Age. Vice-Captain of the Forlindon Shieldmasters, herald of the High King Gil-Galad, and devotee of Eärendil, the Star of High Hope.Or, as the ragtag Dúnedain troupe known as the Howling Commandos calls him,Steve.The Commandos are to sabotage an orc signal tower deep within the Ephel Dúath mountains, clearing the way for the armies of the Last Alliance to march on Barad-dûr and rescue all of Middle-earth from the clutches of this new and terrible Dark Lord.“Steve” has no way of knowing that love formed deep behind enemy lines would settle so completely inside his immortal heart, defying time, distance, and ultimately death itself.





	1. The Gates of Argonath, 6 Months Later

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the [Stucky AU Big Bang (2019)](https://stuckyaubang.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The artwork was done by the incredibly talented [@hoozoo](http://hoozoo.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Beta edits by the unbelievably patient, talented, and BRILLIANT beta reader, **Sno**. Thank you for fixing all my word garbage!
> 
> This fic delves deep into Tolkien's masterful legendarium. There are references to the people and places of Middle-earth that may seem confusing, but ultimately don't effect the core plot, which is at its heart an MCU story through-and-through. The classic Lord of the Rings characters (Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, etc.) do not make a direct appearance, except by reference by the others. Finally, a few Quenya and Sindarin phrases crop up here and there, and I'll do my best to include the translations in the notes before each chapter where they appear. 
> 
> I have been planning this fic for several years by now, and it was a thrill to bury myself in reference books and maps, and write my own "There and Back Again." Thank you for reading!

_"After the fall of the Dark Tower and the passing of Sauron the Shadow was lifted from the hearts of all who opposed him, but fear and despair fell upon his servants and allies. For though Sauron had passed, the hatreds and evils that he bred had not died, and the King of the West had many enemies to subdue before the White Tree could grow in peace. And wherever King Elessar went with war King Éomer went with him ..."_

 

****

Banner art by [@hoozoo](http://hoozoo.tumblr.com/)

 

**PROLOGUE: Dol Guldur**

Pierce feels the destruction of the One Ring the exact moment it happens. A great heat blooms in his heart, as if he has swallowed acid. This is followed quickly by a terrible wrenching in his bones. At first, it is more of pressure than of pain, long held tension releasing along every joint, until it pulls apart the very sinew of his being and all he can do is scream. Finally, a thin cord of fire pulls everything out of his body, from the bottom of his guts through the top of his skull, pulling, pulling, pulling, until finally he is left loose, inverted.

With this cord of fire goes much of his power but none of his hatred. He floats for some time in a void of darkness and pain, knowing all is lost— _ _Sauron is lost!__

...But then, a flicker of red light, like a star of blood, summons him back, and then all of a sudden he is whole once more.

Within the hour he gathers what remains of his forces, his most trusted lieutenants and his least trusted allies, and flees his longtime fortress for the far North. Elvish eyes will soon turn to Dol Guldur and his most precious weapon will be discovered. He needs to be ready when that weapon will undoubtedly be turned against him and what remains of the pure Númenórean race.

 

 

_Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad_

* * *

 

**Chapter I: The Gates of Argonath, 6 Months Later**

The figures are colossal, towering above the Anduin, pointed crowns grazing the heavens where mountains could only yearn to reach. The massive blocks of stone worked in the all-too-familiar likeness of Isildur and Anárion, brothers, kings. Men the Soldier remembers himself as if he saw them but yesterday, yet here they stand as weathered statues, ancient monuments chipped away by the passing of a thousand years. Each proud king extends an arm out towards the Anduin, warning off intruders traveling along the river that may wish harm upon their beloved kingdom.

The Soldier has to once again remind himself that this is supposedly where he belongs. He cranes his neck, unable to look away even as they fall under the shadow of the formidable gate, pulled to the mouth of lake Nen Hithoel. He raises his metal hand to block out the glare from the afternoon sun that breaks over Isildur’s square shoulder. The king’s stone gaze touches something small and cowardly inside him, and the Soldier nearly finds the words to apologize before a voice like tumbling gravel pulls his attention back down.

“If you fall any more in love with that thing you’ll row this boat right over the waterfall.”

The Soldier glares at the back of his companion’s fat head, still somewhat nonplussed by his bizarre company. The dwarf sits at the prow of their white, elvish boat as if it were his throne, a Silvan elf paddles a smaller boat ahead, keeping watch as their scout. A knight from Gondor rides with him, apparently the leader of this journey to her realm.

If the Lady Galadriel hadn’t insisted, the Soldier would have preferred to take the road alone, but here he is.

Just to make sure he’s got the Soldier’s full attention, Antonius (son of _Stark_ —as if that means something) sneaks a glance over his round shoulder, then shrugs. The dwarf’s movement is decidedly prim as he pats the throat of the boat’s figurehead with large, flat hands, as if the graceful, carved swan were a living thing that could appreciate the attention. His huge, dwarvish nose sticks in the air as they clear the Argonath, emerging in the mirror-calm lake that marks Gondor’s northern most border. Apparently, the dwarf is entirely unimpressed with the kings of men.

“Well! I can’t rightly blame you,” Antonius continues, his voice pitched loud to make damned sure the Soldier hears him over the whisper of water against the sides of their boat and distant roar of the Falls of Rauros. It practically echoes off the lake’s still surface, buffeted back to them by the tall pines that line each bank. “I’d lop off my own arm if it meant I could have one like that. Never smash a thumb on an anvil again…”

The Soldier wants to say that one can always count on a dwarf to find a way, but speaking with his companions in Westron has so far been an insurmountable feat. The words of his native language have eluded him for centuries, the accent of his Westernesse long since replaced with a fluency for the Black Speech of Mordor. He keeps a half-mask over his mouth: he’d rather be mute than utter a single word in the language of his slavers. However, it seems to have left him particularly vulnerable to being spoken at ceaselessly by this tactless loudmouth. Perhaps his silence makes the others feel as if he is only partially in their company, and the dwarf needs to confirm his presence with noise.

Antonius clicks his tongue, unconcerned with the lack of any response, and effortlessly carries on with the one-sided conversation. “You’re probably right,” he says, studying his own, clean palm with something like disappointment. “I’m right-handed besides.”

The Soldier instinctively gazes down to his metal hand, which the dwarf has clearly mistaken as some masterpiece.

If it weren’t for the elvish wrappings, a parting gift from the Lady Galadriel, his strange companions would hardly accept his company. There is no mistaking the eye engraved on the scalloped pauldron or the twisted filigree favored by the so-called ‘God of Gifts.’ After blinding that monstrous eye with a sleeve of grey silk, he had asked to be called by the name his former master had given him. _Hesohtar_ , the Winter Soldier. It had been the only word he could force past his lips at the time and the name suits him, even as he creeps out from under the shadow’s influence.

“Enough, master dwarf,” groans the knight from Gondor. It is her oft repeated mantra, since it seems Maria is a human of few other words. She pinches the bridge of her narrow nose in frustration, then tugs on the brim of her forest green hood to adjust for the sunlight’s advancing angle. Her swan-crested helm remains at her side, for now. “Don’t forget our companion is only with us by his unhappy chance,” she warns the dwarf. “He isn’t charged with your safety as I am, and he’s certainly not your elf-friend like Rhodey.”

The knight-errant had traveled all the way to Lothlórien from Dol Amroth, on orders from Prince Imrahil, only to turn around and head back South again as an escort to Antonius and Rhodirion along with some mysterious invention of theirs. The Swan Knights are known for their skill in combat, loyalty to the crown, and leadership on the battlefield. For Maria to have traveled alone to escort this peculiar inventor means he must be incredibly important, or his invention dangerously powerful.

Now, this Swan Knight must also suffer the Soldier’s mute presence, making room for him in the company so long as his own road matches theirs. Her lead vessel is small and agile, suitable for only two passengers, while the Soldier’s boat also carries the weight of cargo and horses. Maria carries her weapons like she carries her pride, subtle and quiet but within easy reach.

The Soldier likes Maria.

Antonius snorts dismissively, clearly happy to annoy the knight. “He’ll have plenty of chances to warm up to me,” the Dwarf says, apparently taking her warning as a challenge. “Besides, we won’t be attacked by orcs this close to Gondor’s border in the middle of the afternoon.”

Rhodirion had spent much of their voyage in silence, but suddenly he brings his oar up short as his chin lifts towards the Western bank of Nen Hithoel. He then glances over his shoulder to follow something the others could not see near the Argonath with a subtle hum of alarm. The Soldier automatically follows the elf’s line of sight, expecting orcs to leap out of the shadows of the trees, expecting black arrows to rain down on their heads as if the dwarf’s boast had summoned them.

It’s all too familiar, just like the massive statues had been, just like his king’s look of warning, once again coming too late. The Soldier also senses what had alarmed the elf, a shadow nearly oozing out from all around them, not just East but West as well, behind them and ahead. They are surrounded.

The elf utters a single word: “Orcs.”

The lake is ten miles wide, and they in their elvish boats are nearly dead center, an uncovered meal on a silver platter. The Soldier can’t believe they could be so horribly exposed without him noticing. Damn the dwarf’s incessant prattling!

“Will we have time to make it ashore?” Maria says, her voice steady and low. She means to make for the Western bank, to the lawn of Parth Galen where they had planned to beach the elvish boats and let their horses carry them the rest of the way. Only now, she means to make the bank before the black arrows will start to fly, to give them a chance to survive the ambush.

“Just.”

Antonius leaps away from the prow, bounces past the Soldier and grabs ahold of the lead line with a wrenching tug. Their sailboat pivots quickly enough for the horses to whicker in alarm, and the Soldier catches sight of Maria and Rhodirion paddling ahead, moving swiftly in their smaller vessel. It only takes moments for the keels of their boats to grind over the pebbled bank, first the smaller row boat, then the sailboat, which tips to one side as the weight settles in the shallows.

They come ashore quickly, leaving the horses tethered on the sailboat for now, and splash up to the bright, new grass towards the treeline. The Soldier follows without a word, without hesitation. What else is he to do? Maria’s sword sighs gratefully when she pulls it from the sheath on her hip, and Rhodirion slips his bow free of the leather plaquette on his back. The elf strings it effortlessly as they make their way over fallen pine needles, never once lowering his eyes from the unseen foe ahead. The dwarf has a hammer. A big one. With a spike on one end.

They pass a tumble of weathered stone that may have once been a wall, and the Soldier looks back towards the beach, realizing suddenly that he has been here before. He remembers this beach, this wall, back when he had been—

“A pack of eight,” Rhodirion quietly states. “Moving swiftly. They are sticking to the opposite side of that ridgeline, out of sight of the trail.”

They are likely attempting to hide in the shadows of the trees, but still the Soldier is unable to form the words to relay this thought to others. Orcs don’t travel by daylight, can barely see in the glare of the sun, and if they move swiftly, the Soldier reasons, it means the group has a reason. What exactly could force a band of orcs to flee during the day? And flee _South_ towards a hated enemy?

The Soldier has a handful of answers, none of them good.

“Will they pass us by?” Maria asks.

 _No_.

Rhodirion shakes his head. The dwarvish beads in the twists of his long, dark braids click against one another. A rare look for an elf, though perhaps not so strange when held against the friendship he apparently has with this dwarf. The sunlight that breaks through the canopy of the forest speckles Rhodirion’s black skin as his golden eyes peer deeper than the rest of the company can. “They’ve caught our scent. If we do not face them now, they will be at our backs along with whatever spotted us near the Argonath.”

“Only eight?” Antonius grumbles. “Barely any sport.”

“Not all of us are warriors, Toni,” Rhodirion says in Quenya with a soft smile, and the dwarf spits, frustrated but begrudging this supposed fact with surprisingly little other protest. Even though the elf had spoken to the dwarf, the Soldier feels as if the the words had been aimed at him. Perhaps Rhodirion doesn’t realize the Soldier knows Quenya, but the elf had used the word _ohtardi_ , which can be translated as _warrior_ or _soldier_. The elf clearly leans into the suffix, making it plain that _Hesohtar_ is hardly a proper name.

The Silvan is young by elvish reckoning, but his kin are keen to keep old stories alive. It’s likely that he knows of Borlas son of Eruion, of Fornost in the Northern Kingdom of Arnor. Perhaps he knows of Borlas son of Eruion, the supposed hero of Dagorlad. Perhaps he knows _everything_. A chill creeps under his skin as the Soldier’s paranoia spreads. Maria speaks, this time clearly at him, bringing him up from his spiral.

“Stay hidden, close to the shore, and continue the ride to Minas Tirith if we do not return,” Maria instructs, not questioning why the Soldier makes no move to arm himself. “The dwarf’s cart holds something of great importance, and it would not go unrewarded if you were to deliver it on our behalf. If we should fall,” she raises her eyebrows and offers him a cynical little shrug. “Well, at least the horses can keep you company ‘til you reach the safety of the city.”

The human’s words are practical and direct, with a touch of grim humor that had once been more common from the people of Arnor than Gondor. If he had been a civilian, some hapless peasant or a farmer, it’d be a gentle way of acknowledging his deficiencies. A quick glance at the cautious way Rhodirion ignores the suggestion finally settles the pieces into place. The Lady Galadriel must’ve said something to the trio before he joined their company. A warning against throwing him into battle, as if he is now incapable of facing violence, broken by war.

_Is that what he is?_

The soldier frowns behind his half mask. Isn’t he the one who asked to be called _Hesohtar_? War has settled into his skin by now, into his bones. He can’t deny it, not as long as he carries the Morgul taint in his soul, that unwelcome hitchhiker who keeps his nerves on edge and instincts alert. His metal hand tightens into a fist over his own confusion, but their advancing enemies won’t wait for him to sort out his own feelings, and neither will his determined company.

The human launches forward up the sloping hill towards the ridge, the elf springs silently ahead, and the dwarf rambles along in their wake, leaving the Soldier behind.

* * *

 

“Battle-plain?” The Southerner named ‘Mori’ remarks. “That’s all the high and mighty Ñoldor could come up with? _Battle-plain_?”

“And what would you prefer?” Borlas says, gesturing out over the treeless plains where they’ve set up camp, between the rocky hills of Emyn Muil and the fortified pass of Cirith Gorgor. “Sauron’s Dusty Ass Crack?”

Mori’s jaw drops, and his companion fumbles the strip of meat from between his fingers. The fire pops in the dead silence that follows, before Dum Dum howls in laughter and slaps Borlas on the back. “And they say the men of Fornost have no sense of humor!”

Dum Dum is large, mustachioed, and _loud_. Borlas had mistaken him for a cave-dwelling mountain man at first, and still isn’t convinced he actually hails from Gondor. Still, these men have proven to be good company, despite the fact that Borlas is not entirely sure how he got caught up with the Gondor forces. Originally, he had deployed with the rest of Arnor’s Dúnedain forces under Elendil. By now, all the humans—Dúnedain or otherwise—seem to have been blended together in one giant mess of an army.

No one had expected the war to last this long.

“I think it’s fitting,” Dernier says with a shrug. “War is all this place is good for.”

“Even though the swamp makes it a pain in my ass?” Dum Dum grumbles darkly. “Quick, Borlas, what is Elvish for ‘pain in my ass’?”

“If I knew every word of Elvish, Dwarvish and the tongues of men, I still would not translate that for you,” Borlas snorts, and the others laugh again.

“I guess that settles it,” Mori says, wiping tears from his eyes. “Dagorlad it is.”

“To the heroes of Dagorlad!” Borlas says, giving his armored knee a thump to seal the deal on the Sindarin name for the ‘Battle-plain’ where they have lived on for months.

“No! Not the heroes of Dagorlad! We’re not the ones that killed the General Herumor with a single, flaming arrow!” Dum Dum stands up, and points a meaty finger over the top of their small campfire. “Sauron’s necromancers will be killed one by one if we have Borlas son of Eruion on our side! It’s time we welcomed you properly into the Howling Commandos. Say the password, and you’ll receive your new name, granted by the grace of… well, me.”

“The password?” Borlas snorts again. “Don’t tell me, it’s—”

“ _Pain in my ass_ , in Elvish.”

Borlas sighs. “Fine. _Naeg in nin_ … ass.”

“You just added the word _ass_ onto a regular sentence!” Dum Dum blusters, throwing an accusatory finger his way.

“There is no word in Quenya for _ass_ , you _ass_!”

The others raise their water skins in a toast as laughter erupts again. The celebration is a far cry from the solemn affair of the elves.

The necromancer Herumor is said to have been the one to slay the elf lord Oropher in the earlier battles of the marshy, fetid Dagorlad. Borlas’ heroism against this hated enemy—corrupted humans with allegences only to death itself—had been rewarded with ceremony and the gift of two, gleaming knives, said to be an heirloom of the Mirkwood elves. It had been a strange ceremony, and the weapons are too great a reward for his deeds. Still, he had graciously accepted and now treasures the strange, elvish weapons. The blades glow blue in the presence of their enemy—a perfect weapon for a scout and sniper.

Tomorrow morning they renew their siege against Morannon, the black gate leading to Udûn and the dark lord’s capital. Tonight, Borlas is given the name ‘Bucky’ for giving the men of Gondor a good reason to laugh, and reminding them all that this alliance of elves and men is more unified than not.

* * *

 

The Soldier shifts his weight, drifting into the grassy scrub that sprouts along the vague line between the gravely bank and the shadows of the trees. He stares into the woods, where the ground slopes up and away into full darkness of the lush canopy, then fills his chest with another deep breath.

Two small kingfishers, indiscreet in their bright blue and orange jackets, dart past him towards the lake, playing on a shallow burst of wind. The Soldier just barely picks up the foul scent of the enemies that his company ran to meet, even as he watches the happy little birds pass by. The oily, black odor is unmistakable, but there’s also the golden current of the fresh grass filling his nose, the clean water, the rich topsoil. He’s been here before, smelling this same earth, wading these same banks, when Perth Galen was a busy outpost instead of a ruin, when Amon Hen was the eyes of all of Gondor. The memory of his early rotations overlap with others, with the raids he’d defended against—or no— _perpetrated_ in the cover of spreading darkness. It’s more peaceful now, overtaken with new trees, blocks of stone half-buried in undergrowth and no longer witness to his evil deeds.

Try as he might to focus on the peace of it all, he can still feel the stillness in the air that signals the coming violence as the rest of his party approaches the orc band.

The Soldier had spent many weeks in Lorien, learning how to be alive again since the shadow’s hold over him has been undone. It’s disorienting to consider himself beyond much more than just being here, in this moment.

_Still alive. Still free._

He looks to the East and breathes again, just because he can. They told him the shadow itself had been undone, the ring of power finally destroyed. The evil of Sauron can no longer take a foothold in Middle-earth in this or any age to come.

The Soldier looks down at his left hand, flexes all the fingers into a fist, crushing the soft elvish cloth that disguises the worst of it from his companions. For the first time in the many long years of his life, the Soldier faces a choice that is wholly his own: to seek out answers, or to charge into those trees and fight with this odd assortment of free people. Life is everywhere around him now, along with nearly forgotten colors, and warmth.

Is stepping out from under the eaves of the sacred mallorn and directly into battle the first choice he really wants to make?

The winds shift again, apparently restless between the lake and forest, and something new comes with it. The Soldier whirls around, scanning the darkened treeline back towards the Argonath for the threat, growing like a length of shadow towards the skirmish over the ridge. It’s much huskier than the orcs, something larger and rotten, like it carries the taint of a far greater evil than—

The Soldier buckles forward, clamping his right hand over his mask to hold back a gag. He knows this horrific scent all too well. It’s not just of evil, but corruption. Fighting Uruk-hai, bred with a foul purpose that upsets the entire world with its passing. He carefully withdraws his hand now that the shock has passed, and tries to pinpoint its bearing. The Uruks track along the same trajectory as the orcs, traveling South to intercept them, perhaps in chase. It would explain why the orcs traveled in daylight, fleeing from such a dangerous enemy. The Soldier’s rare company—the angry human ranger, the un-elvish elf, and their prissy dwarf charge—would no doubt be taken unawares by this unexpected danger as they are now between the band orcs and the new threat. They seem capable enough, but…

_Still alive. Still free._

The Soldier watches the kingfishers perch on the carved neck of the boat’s proud swan figurehead, settling down as if they belong on that unnatural habitat, and smiles beneath his mask.

Having no real choice offers its own kind of freedom, sometimes. He slips his bow from his shoulder and leaps into the treeline, towards the battle and the evil that stalks their company.


	2. Cirith Ungol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima…"  
> In Quenya means: "Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars..."

_Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad_

* * *

 

Sedryn, also known as Sedryn Amathion, isn’t the sort of elf who laughs, or sings, or even deigns to speak Westron if it can be avoided. Beautiful and fair, privileged by the grace of his people, Sedryn is rarely seen outside of his gleaming armor. Unlike most elves, his golden hair is shorn close to his head, swept back from a radiant circlet. He isn’t cruel or unreasonable, and indeed holds honor in high regard, but clearly prefers to remain isolated from everyone else, and this gives him an air of arrogance that is hard to move past. Even King Elessar, who married the elf princess Arwen Undómiel, seems taken aback by Sedryn’s cool distance and mirthless baring.

Out of all the fair folk who could have been chosen to stay behind in the court of Reunited Kingdoms, it had been a surprise to everyone that an elf who is so utterly disinterested in humans would volunteer to be that emissary. It doesn’t help matters that the name Sedryn Amathion is already known far and wide. While some would think he was some kind of hero from ages long past, Sedryn believes his supposed legendary acts of valor have all grown even more outrageous with time, despite him hiding from the rest of Middle-earth, spending nearly the entirety of the Third Age in isolation in the far North. He knows many of his own kin had expected him to be on the ships sailing for Valinor, leaving the messy world of Men and mortality behind. 

Very few would understand why he had chosen to stay.

Really, Sedryn is perfectly aware of his reputation, but does precious little to correct the impression. The contingent of Gondor soldiers under his command respect him well enough without him going to such lengths as being their friend. As long as they obey his orders, follow his lead, and don’t die, Sedryn is perfectly happy to endure the jokes they make in their tents when they think he isn’t listening.

Of course it had to be Peter that didn't obey orders this time. 

Peter is sharp, one of the most nimble humans Sedryn has come across in this fledgling age, and the first soldier he picked for their advanced pathfinder unit. Peter also had gone directly against his orders, and now Sedryn finds himself staring down the youngest member of their troupe, seated in one of the most dangerous places in Middle-earth, wondering what he is going to do with him. 

Humans never seem to do anything by half measures, Sedryn thinks, and tries not to pinch the bridge of his nose. It’s a human gesture, a bad habit he seems to have inadvertently picked up, and he doesn’t want to continue showing that level of frustration in front of the younger race if he can help it.

“I swear it, Captain,” Peter says, unable to endure the silent glare any longer. He puffs up his chest with courage as he looks up sharply, unblinking. “If I hadn’t engaged, that orc would have alerted the whole mountainside and we’d be tumbling back down the stair like a set of slinkrings.”

Sedryn doesn’t know what a slinkring is. Some kind of human nonsense. It doesn’t matter. He just shakes his head, ever-so-slightly, and Peter shifts his weight. As the advance scout, Peter is armored in soft leather and linen, and carries mostly climbing equipment to navigate the Secret Stair that rises up just West of Minas Morgul, the abandoned city of the Nazgûl. He cuts a terribly inadequate figure when he squares his shoulders.

“I- I know it was dangerous to follow him into the cave,” Peter continues, his voice cracking along with his confidence. Sedryn raises a sharp eyebrow as Peter sputters defensively. “It wasn’t on impulse, Captain! It was a conscious decision to follow him. I checked the wind, just like you taught us, and he didn’t know I followed. I had the advantage…” 

Peter trails off as Sedryn’s scowl deepens, and the boy visibly swallows. The others have gone completely silent behind him and now just watch as he suffers. “I guess if… if he had his own scouts in the gully before the opening… I guess I could have been ambushed.” Sedryn doesn’t exactly nod, but he doesn’t not nod either, and Peter sags. “I know I could have been killed. I was willing to take that risk. But I guess… I guess that would have given away the entire unit.” 

Sedryn waits for him to finish, the sharp edge of his patience slicing through Peter’s bluster like a knife.

“And you would have had no warning when you came looking for- for me.” Peter looks down at his own toes. “I’m sorry, Captain. I never should have pursued.” 

Sedryn waits until Peter dares to look back up at him. “Dismissed, soldier.” He doesn’t need to say any more.

Peter returns hastily to the others, giddy with relief, and they welcome him back as a hero of some great trial.

“Congrats, kid,” Phillip, son of Coul tells him, and passes him a packet of lembas. “You survived the great Sindarin Stare.” 

“Oh, Commander, _please_ don't, _”_ Peter begs in a whisper. “He’ll hear you.”

“I wouldn't worry about that.” Phillip is an agent of the King, eldest in the unit, and the least impressed with Sedryn’s reserved distance—except for maybe Clinton, a human who seems to prefer remaining silent.

“But he’s an _elf,”_ Peter reiterates, his whisper going high and desperate. 

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Melinda says, her tone as dry as kindling. The human known as “Mac” chuckles and claps a huge hand on Peter’s narrow shoulder and Sedryn stops listening as they continue to reassure the boy with their typical ritual of human sarcasm.

The orc that Peter brought back is enough of a mystery. They stopped in a small break in the mountain, an alcove of rock that gives the five of them enough space to sit and rest while also offering protection from the wind or the prying eyes from the caves beyond. Peter had trussed up the creature in his climbing lines to carry it back, clever enough to not leave a body for any other orcs to find. The creature is pale, gray cheeks gaunt from a lack of teeth, runtish for a Mordor orc. Starving.

It’s the same sort of condition that Sedryn has seen of Sauron’s forces since returning from the North, as if the these stragglers are diminishing at the very core of their species. Much like the elves, only in a manner more suited to their hideous race. Sedryn glances away from the corpse, looks past his troupe of human charges, where the crack in the mountainside twists sharply to the right and out of sight. If followed, the path would lead them straight to Shelob’s lair, one of the last known spawn of the great Ungoliant, and the destination of their current mission. The orcs have somehow still been creeping out of Mordor, and even though the Secret Stair is treacherous, it’s important to ensure that the path can no longer be taken by these beasts.

By all accounts the great spider has fled, but this orc…

Sedryn turns the sickly green face aside. It’s neck is already stiff but not with the rigor expected from any death. Something else has caused the blood to crystalize, the flesh to swell and grow turgid against the strain. 

Peter had killed the orc by snapping its neck, an admittedly elegant way to do so without leaving traces of its black blood behind for others to discover. Sedryn slips an elegant push knife from his armored bracer and cuts through the mottled skin of the creature’s throat. Black blood oozes up from the wound like melted wax, and he turns away from the sharp scent of venom. He curses under his breath in his native language so as not to alert the others, but it’s unlikely the humans heard him. They continue to whisper over their small fare and water skins, clueless that the orcs suddenly became the least dangerous threat the band of weary soldiers would face before their mission is complete. 

As long as they obey his orders, follow his lead, and don’t die, they would make the long trek back to their base camp at Minas Morgul, reporting to Commander Fury that Shelob had spawned prior to her departure. Before then, he will have to lead his team straight into her supposedly abandoned tunnels to discover if the creatures are still present within the dark and twisting tunnels of her lair.

* * *

After six years and twelve tours of duty in the great siege effort against the impenetrable black fortress of Barad-dûr, Sedryn finally meets the human troupe known as the Howling Commandos, and for the first time in his very long life, is thoroughly vexed. 

The alliance between elves, men, and dwarves is hierarchical. The Ñoldor lead with High King Gil-Galad at their head, who now also leads the Galadhrim and Mirkwood elves after the fall of King Orofer and King Amdír in their foolhardy rush across the marshes. The younger races mind their own roles beneath their respective leaders. The war council is housed in a great tent at the crossroads formed by the encampments’ intersecting pickets, where only the leaders share intelligence, take advice, and form strategy. The necessary information is then disseminated from there, reaching the lower ranks as needed. Efficient. Orderly. Effective for the long, tireless siege in the endless night within the valley of Udûn.

So when the elite company of humans appear, armor still crusted by Dagorlad’s dusty sands, yet smiling from ear to ear, he knows he’s in for it. Supposedly, the Howling Commandos have not once taken leave of the siege, have not once yielded, and have not once lost a member of their own. Their leader, Borlas son of Eruion, is the famed archer who avenged Oropher and had been granted a great honor by Gil-galad, and the hatred of the enemy’s remaining Númenórean generals. Fuinur, now the General of Sauron’s Haradrim forces, had pierced one of his own men through with a javelin, just to deliver a message of unending torment behind their lines.

“Is he the one they called The Captain?” One of the humans asks, apparently unfamiliar with the keen hearing of Sedryn’s people. He’s supposed to lead the troupe on a special mission to scout a pass for a small detachment of elves and men. Along the way, they are to remove the orc scouts without alerting their forces, and capture the signal tower the enemy uses in order to ensure safe passage through the rocky terrain. The plan requires them to work together, collaborating in a new way to ensure the needs of both armies are met, and while Sedryn is the only elf in the company, the humans saw fit to send seven of their own number. They’ve arrived on the opposite end of the muster grounds in front of the command tent, no horses, no packs as far as he could see. 

“ _Nikerym_ , yes,” a Northerner answers with the Quenya word for the rank. The human glances Sedryn’s way with clear grey eyes. Their gaze locks for just an instant before the human smiles in an odd way that Sedryn can’t quite read. “...And he can hear us from there.” 

“ _Sedryn_ , please,” he says, approaching the group open-handed, before stopping to bow in front of them. “Also known as Amathion, born of lower Himring, Vice-Captain of the Forlindon Shieldmasters, and herald of the High King Gil-Galad.” 

The humans don’t immediately respond, just stare with blank expressions. Could their hearing just be that terrible that he has to repeat himself? Sedryn hasn’t had much to do with humans, and now he must travel with them for weeks, possibly months to secure the signal tower. 

Perhaps he has already managed to break some social contract, offended them on first meeting, made the worst possible impression by— 

“I think we should call him Steve,” the Northerner says, and the others nod sagely, as if he revealed some wisdom.

Perhaps this is their own social ritual to accepting new members into a group. Sedryn looks from the Northerner to the others, and back to him, realizing this human must be Borlas, and the troupe leader. He wears the colors of the forces from Arnor, and an ithildin brooch the shape of a spread wing on his cloak marks him as one of the Dúnedain.

“Very well,” Sedryn says. Curiously, the smile drops off the Dúnedain’s face, but Sedryn only assumes this must be their way. “Steve it is.”

One of the others laughs like a horse, but the Dúnedain folds his arms across his chest and his expression takes on a more contemplative look.

“Steve, of the Howling Commandos,” he states, testing Sedryn’s new human title.

The monosyllabic name sounds odd to his ear, but so do most human names. Sedryn nods anyway, understanding. He’s been accepted into their tribe, and together they will ensure their combined forces of elves and men will break the stranglehold that Sauron has on the gates of Barad-dûr, and hopefully end this deadly war.

* * *

If he could name the single greatest tragedy of the race of men, Sedryn thinks, it would have to be their truly abysmal eyesight. 

The elf captain goes first into the cave, unwilling to send a forward scout inside with a torch, burning like a signal beacon for any creature of the dark to target. Instead, he touches the center of his breastplate, over the pure silver jewels cut in the shape of Eärendil’s star, and speaks a hopeful prayer. “ _Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima…_ ”

The human troupe doesn’t say anything, they’ve seen his grace before, but Sedryn himself still feels a wash of relief when the white glow radiates ahead of him, cutting a path through the shadows. The light of the Eldar is slowly draining from Middle-earth as his people are called home to Valinor, and he has no idea how much longer Eärendil will answer his prayers. He tries to push that thought away as they immerse themselves in the spider’s lair, having no room for fear.

Despite the guiding light, Sedryn is forced to lead the others at a snail’s pace, or else risk the half-blind humans falling into one of the many pits and crevices throughout Cirith Ungol. He hates this place, hates the entire ungoliant race, and never in two and a half thousand years imagined he’d walk willingly into the lair of the Shadow Spider herself. Would Gil-Galad have been ashamed of him if he’d live to see the choice Sedryn had made, forsaking his rightful place on the ships West? To continue leading these young fools through dark, abandoned places such as this? It has been so long since the High King’s death, Sedryn can’t be sure.

It had taken half a day for the company to travel the pass, picking their way through the broken mouth leading into impenetrable darkness. Their steps are painfully slow, avoiding the crunch of orc bones underfoot as they sink deeper into the tunnels. The darkness within is unnatural, clinging to their ankles as they pick their way over the detritus left by the deadly predator in her lair, settling onto their shoulders like fog dampening their clothes. These fearless humans are what Sedryn would consider some of the best Gondor has to offer, but now they hover closely to one another, each covering the other’s blind spot, expecting a battle on all fronts.

It’s hard to know how long they explore the tunnels, how deep into the mountainside they sink, but Sedryn senses the fatigue growing in their group as they clamber up the next ladder of broken stone and sticky filament that coats the damp walls. Once at the top, they find themselves in an alcove much like a loft, with only a few small holes that lead into further darkness. The filth seems to have gathered here, bones and glittering webs carpeting the floor, padding the farthest corners that retreat from the small circle of light. 

Phillip’s whispering hits the floor behind him like stones. “A dead end?”

“Silence,” Sedryn hisses, recognizing the feeling of eyes on him instinctually. The humans freeze and hold their breath, disciplined to await his next order without question. Everything from the fetid air to the sticky cave walls makes it hard to sense any movement beyond his own, but there, just beyond a tumble of loose soil, Sedryn spots the slightest shift of shadow against black stone. Unable to trust the humans to react in time, he leaps forward, drives his fist through a cluster of bones and webbing, and gets ahold of—something. 

A flurry of chaos bursts from the nest of webs, a violent screech and a dangerous hiss split the still air. His quarry lashes out, tearing free from his grip as the humans go on the offensive. Sedryn pulls his sword free, ducking the glossy black legs, then rebounds from the cave wall to put momentum behind a downward slash— 

“Watch it!” Clinton shouts.

—that misses.

Clinton crashes into pure shadow, knocking Phillip back and Melinda tumbles off the edge of the loft. For just an instant, Sedryn thinks Clinton has been swallowed whole, the fool of a human sucked into some unseen hole, but then the shadows shift away from his light, and— 

“It’s a woman!” Mac blurts out. 

“It’s not!” Sedryn shouts, but then Clinton finally gets ahold of her, this moving shadow, and suddenly he isn’t so sure. 

Clinton lost his daggers in the scuffle, but holds a barbed arrow to the long, pale throat of a woman straining against the human’s sure grip. Her hair is the color of blood, frazzled curls fallen in front of poisonous green eyes, full of defiance. She squints ever so slightly in Sedryn’s pale illumination, but she doesn’t recoil as a creature of shadow truly would. “Who are you?” 

The stranger doesn’t answer, and instead lunges away from Clinton in renewed effort to free herself, but now Mac has recovered, Melinda has climbed back into the loft and Peter has his own bow drawn. There’s nowhere she can flee where they can’t pursue. She seems to realize this and stops struggling, perhaps accepting her situation or simply to bide her time. Her body is a hard black line of tension, wearing scraps of black leather and gleaming chitinous shell beneath the remains of a ragged pale cloak that is more thread than fabric. 

“Who are you?” Phillip asks this time. “What are you doing in here?” 

“We won’t hurt you,” Clinton nearly whispers, and at that her long lashes flutter in surprise. “Just tell us what to call you.” 

“I don’t know,” she answers through her white teeth. “I woke up here. Wounded. _Starving._ ”

The way she says it makes Sedryn’s skin crawl, but her words have a different effect on the human holding her. Clinton relaxes his grip, ever so slightly, and in an instant she’s broken his hold and vaults over Melinda’s head, vanishing in the darkness. Sedryn sighs. Humans never learn.

“Did she poison the orc?” Peter asks, relaxing his draw while Clinton slowly gets to his feet.

“Collect your weapons,” Sedryn tells them instead of answering. If she’s been living here, there’s little doubt that the Spider is indeed gone, but that doesn’t mean this creature isn’t a threat herself. The moment he put his hands on her, he sensed something Other, something non-human, and dangerous. It isn’t enough to articulate to the troupe, so he simply stands back, giving the rest time enough to dig through the heaped bones and dried carcasses, sticky with webbing, to retrieve their scattered equipment.

“Captain,” Melinda speaks up, drawing out something that glints against the darkness, a vambrace with dark metal links. She folds the cuff back, and through some clever device, a barb shoots forth, six inches long and streaked with dark oil. Melinda wafts the scent beneath her own nose, then coughs at the scent of poison. “She may be the one after all.”

“Why didn’t she use this weapon against us?” Clinton asks. He speaks quietly, muted from both the creeping darkness and his inability to properly hear his own voice. Clinton is nearly deaf, has been since the Battle of the Morannon, and rarely utters a sound for the fear that he may be shouting.

Why, indeed.

“We’ll return with our report,” Sedryn says. “Chances are, she’s a drifter who came searching Mordor for lost treasure, like those vultures in Henneth Annûn, and clearly got in over her head.” 

The others seem satisfied with that theory, except Clinton, who takes the vambrace from Melinda to inspect it more carefully. Sedryn leads the troupe out of the tunnels, back down the winding stair to recover within the base camp set up at the foot of Minas Morgul.


	3. Parth Galen

_Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad_

* * *

 

The Soldier hears the clash before he sees it, following the trail of the others up the slope, until he reaches the end of the broken stone path. Just ahead is the edge of a high berm overlooking a wide, flat gully where a few broken trees have collapsed some time ago, forming mossy ramps to the dead leaves below. At the bottom, Maria wields a shield like a second weapon, driving its pointed edge into the struggling orc at her feet just before pivoting and slashing open another with her one-handed sword. Rhodirion uses a pair of long knives, taking on another two orcs in close combat as Stark bellows at the top of his voice and slings a battle hammer in a wide arc (rather ineffectually.)

As the last of the creatures fall, dispatched efficiently enough by the trio, the Soldier has already compulsively assessed Maria’s skill, Rhodirion’s preference for twin swords over a bow, and Stark’s howling chaos, as if he still needs to catalogue strategic notes about how to fight them. When he drops into the soft cover of fallen leaves, he forces himself to look from his new allies to the remains of the creatures who had been on a path to attack them.

These orcs are gaunt, ragged creatures suffering through daytime travel, and no match for the three warriors. The Soldier spots their trail hugging the inside of the berm, as if they hoped to avoid the worst of sunlight fatigue in the hard shadow cast by its sharp drop. Distantly, he wonders if these particular orcs are ones he may have encountered in Moria, when he had been on their side.

Rhodirion is the first of the trio to notice him, but Stark is unsurprisingly the first to remark on it.

“Didna’ think you were the sort who liked to just watch,” Stark remarks, then laughs so hard he slaps his own knee.

The Soldier opens his mouth to answer, then closes it the moment he picks up on the double entendre. Luckily, the others wouldn’t have seen the hesitation beneath his half mask, so he ignores the jab and glances at Rhodirion.

“There is a band of Uruk-hai headed this way,” he tells the elf, resorting to Quenya as Westron—the common tongue for humans in Middle-earth—continues to elude him. Rhodirion doesn’t seem surprised at all to hear his own language, which could mean anything—or nothing at all. “They are giving chase to this rabble. They should pass the far ridge in a minute or two.”

“That explains why these orcs attempted daylight travel,” Rhodirion sighs in Common, then frees his blade from an orc skull with a firm tug. “But why would uruks be hunting orcs?”

“These are Moria orcs,” the Soldier tells him, and Rhodirion almost frowns, likely coming to terms with the fact that no matter how much he speaks in Common, the Soldier will not respond in it. “The Uruk-hai of Orthanc are stronger but leaderless, bereft of common purpose. They take pleasure in crushing lesser beings, and always looked down on such _snaga_.”

This time Rhodirion frowns outright, and the Soldier quickly breaks his gaze from those intense, golden eyes. _Snaga_ is Black Speech for _slave_. He had been referred to as such by his own master so many times he had forgotten that blurting out a word in the language of Mordor isn’t something one does in polite company. Try as he might, he just can’t think of the word for _slave_ in Elvish.

Sensing the tension between the two, Stark slams his fists on his hips with a huff. “Well, did you just come to warn us of the attack or are you going to do something about it?”

So the dwarf speaks Quenya. Good to know.

“It hardly matters,” Maria snaps.

The human speaks Quenya as well. Great.

Maria gives her sword a downward slash that sends the black blood snapping from the blade onto the dead grass. “Out of this hole! Or we’ll see ourselves trapped in the same low ground we slaughtered these foolish devils in.”

Rhodirion takes a few, light hops up one of the fallen trees, his soft boots not even leaving an indent in the fresh moss, as Maria scrambles up the side, quickly enough but not nearly as light footed as the elf.

“Oy! Rhodey!” The dwarf shouts up, spinning his hammer in his hands. “High and low?”

Maria sends a glare back down the berm as Stark makes no move to climb back out. “What fool’s plan are you—!”

“Sure,” Rhodirion agrees before Maria’s objection fully leaves her mouth. He shrugs when she grunts in frustration, as if it can’t be helped.

“Very well,” she mutters, then turns to offer the Soldier her hand when he makes to follow her messy path out of the gully. He ignores it, but she doesn’t take it as a sleight, choosing instead to roll the muscle in her shoulder, as if working out a knot in her shield arm. “If you are unable to fight, understand that I will not be able to protect you.”

The Soldier finds her words confusing at first. A human? Protect _him_? He hasn’t fallen quite that far, yet.

“I’ll always be able to fight,” he answers, knowing she understands the Quenya.

Maria’s only response is a subtle grin as she scans the treeline, opposite the broken stone path that leads to Amon Hen. As if summoned by his words, the dark pack of Uruk-hai come in a stampede over the crest of the arches that lead to the Seeing Seat. He had expected a dozen from their stomping feet and crash of broken armor, but then he spots a single warg with an orc rider.

The Soldier hadn’t picked him out from the rest of their number by sound alone. He’ll kill that one first.

The bow feels strange in his hand, his weapons a gift from the Lady of Light he doesn’t deserve, but had felt forced to accept. He draws with his right hand, fingers easily sifting through the arrow’s soft fletching. With his left, he aims a single metal finger towards the galloping beast. The warg leads the pack, its rider gray as a bloated stormcloud, and when that orc spots their group, it swings a brutal gash of a sword over its head and screams out a ragged battle-cry.

The arrow takes this orc in the mouth before he comes within a hundred paces. Unthinkably, the stubborn creature holds his seat, snapping the shaft of the arrow with broken teeth.

No matter.

The Soldier already has another arrow knocked, and soon enough three more whizz through the air towards his target. The orc swats two out of the air with his sword, but the warg gives a high-pitched snarl as the third pierces its thick hide in front of its shoulder.

The Soldier will have to do better; he hasn’t had the time to adjust to the new bow. When he moves silently, the arm itself is nothing more than a whisper, but when he moves to attack, it sings as a sword pulled free from a sheath, alive with purpose and a living weapon itself, more suited for knives and daggers than archery. Perhaps Galadriel intends for him to rely on a more delicate, defensive weapon as he learns to travel with other free people. Archery is more of an artform than martial, and he can’t seem to reconcile that with the arm’s reaction time, its strength or dexterity. After spending so much time adjusting for the near constant pain in his Morgul arm, and fighting against its almost willful protest for control, the bow’s delicacy throws him off.

In truth, he misses the twisted black bow he had in Mordor, with its black tipped arrows laced in venom. Those tainted weapons had been destroyed when the Galadhrim had cleansed Dol Guldur, but they had answered to his arm’s commands without effort. The twisted key made for an equally tainted lock.

With that, the warg is upon them, and Maria engages first. She has clearly seen her fair share of war, rearing up to block the orc’s wild swings even as she dodges the warg’s attempts to eviscerate her with its filthy claws. Rhodirion stays further back, closer to the edge of the berm with his bow at the ready, but doesn’t immediately engage. In this formation, he awaits the enemy to close before he switches his weapons, and there’s still a few more seconds before the foot soldiers of the Uruk-hai catch up with the warg rider.

The Soldier looses another arrow, this time spearing the warg-rider’s hand. The orc drops his weapon in a howl of pain and a black curse, then his eyes go wide when they fall on the Soldier’s gaze. The distraction is all Maria needs. Unable to defend against her sword, the orc retches blood in a furious growl before she cuts him down with a two-handed slash, opening him from throat to hip. The orc tumbles into the gully, and the warg—freshly freed from its rider—leaps around and manages to clamp its deadly fangs into the chainmail skirt covering Maria’s thigh. She screams, outraged to be so caught, but now the warg is wide open.

The Soldier leaps onto the warg’s back, digs his fingers into its matted scruff, and with a flash of his Lórien dagger, lances it just behind the hinge of its massive jaw. The warg gives one final hack, then quickly dies. The Soldier lands beside Maria, opposite Rhodirion, just as the rest of the Uruk-hai arrive. The Soldier should have given Maria more credit, she acts as an unbreachable defensive line against the dozen charging enemies, moving to both evade the uruk’s deadly sword strikes and knock back the uruk’s every attempt to advance with her heavy shield.

After that, the Soldier’s job is almost too easy, taking on the few uruks that split to the left of her position, while Rhodirion takes right. Apparently, all the Soldier seems to need are his knives, the Elvish weapons thirsty for uruk blood. They feel more natural in his hands, perfectly balanced between his flesh arm and the metal.

Rhodirion’s strategy seems surprisingly sloppy at first, tossing the uruks aside with a fluid shoulder throw, and sending them crashing down into the gully. The elf evades their attacks in this manner, but also leaves enemies alive to strike from behind. Once the Soldier hears the dwarf’s cacophonous laugh, he realizes what ‘high and low’ had meant. Rhodirion throws the uruks over the berm from his high position, where Stark awaits with his heavy hammer to crush their skulls as they topple into the dirt down low. It’s clever, aptly suited for the two fighting styles (if one calls what the dwarf does a ‘style’ by any measure) and Rhodirion quickly sends four uruks to their death before they catch on and start falling back to evade his throws.

The uruks attempt to encircle them after one shouts in Black Speech over the clang of steel, and the Soldier identifies his next target. He doesn’t know if Rhodirion actually understands the language, but the elf adjusts as the uruks follow the leader’s command. The beasts abruptly change tactics, throwing themselves into breaking Maria’s indomitable shield wall. It might have worked, but the Soldier is familiar enough with their maneuvers and easily slips ahead of Maria’s defenses, hamstringing one uruk along the way, then retreats back again.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Soldier pivots around Maria's opposite side, he makes a mistake.

Maria raises her shield to protect her head from a crushing blow with a heavy mace, staggers back a step, sword swinging wide. It’s in this moment that the uruk on her opposite side seizes his opening.

The Soldier has no choice. He never should have engaged if he had wished to keep his soul intact. Any decision to fight carries with it an unavoidable cost, but it is one he must pay, and so he releases his tenuous hold on his own body and takes one step into the world of the wraiths.

It’s a cold realization that he feels a stronger sense of homecoming than he had when he first opened his eyes under the beautiful, withering mallorn trees, forsaking mortality for the waiting arms of a darkness that could never be destroyed with the simple melting of a ring. He doesn’t enter this world fully, merely skims the surface enough to draw on its power and corruption, a single step on a dark path. It grants him a brief moment of foresight and incredible speed, among other dangerous abilities, all of which he needs now.

As if reading constellations derived from the inevitable destruction that crisscrosses the soulless space, the Soldier can see all the violence that will be: the path of the uruk’s blade, the screech against Maria’s armor, the spasm of torn muscle and torrent of blood that follows immediately after. The air holds very still as the Soldier projects this twisted part of himself along the energy of malice and hatred, into the path of the uruk. It reels away from the spectre only it can see, screaming in horror as if stricken by a sudden insanity.

Drawing on the frigid nothingness of that terrible place, the Soldier pulls in air that has never experienced the sun’s warmth. He releases it in shards of ice, launching from his straining palm. It explodes upward, shearing off the uruk’s arm before impaling him on a fan of crystalline blades.

The uruk wheezes out a final, rattling breath, eyes wide with shocked realization. “ _Fak Hesohtar?_ ”

Black blood peppers the ice spears before he dies, and the Soldier steps fully back into the realm of the living. Shadow stepping, as he calls it, always carries with it a risk of drawing too much darkness into himself, but for now he exhales a frost mist and blinks in the natural sunlight. It takes all of two seconds, maybe less. Maria recovers from her backward step as the Soldier wheels around to kill a final enemy, this time without stepping into the wraith world.

“Sorcery!” Maria cries out, hardly even flinching from the wound in her thigh. She steps over to the great icicles, the highest blade reaching up eight feet from the soft ground. The Soldier takes a careful look at Rhodirion while Maria admires his handiwork, and notices the elf is studying him with a wary eye, but says nothing. “It’s been an age since I’ve seen such magic!” Maria continues, and swipes a gloved fingertip across the surface of one spear, smearing the blood there. The magic is delicate, and the ice loses its structure with a great _crack!_ The weight of the dead uruk brings the column down in a cloud of snow, and Maria puts her fists on her hips, kicking the dead uruk in the shoulder, just because. “And the Lady Galadriel said you were tired of war.”

“Indeed,” Rhodirion murmurs.

“No matter,” Maria says, waving off the elf’s obvious skepticism. “The battle is ours!”

The dwarf finally (and noisily) emerges from the gully, dragging himself, hammer and all, over the berm before rolling onto his rump with a clatter of armor, dripping uruk blood and gore. “What did I miss?” Stark grunts out. “Don’t tell me you killed the rest without me?”

“Not entirely,” Rhodirion answers, glancing down at the Soldier’s Galadhrim blades just before they vanish into their black sheaths.

Maria takes a quick step back from one uruk’s sudden swipe from beneath a piece of scrub. Its foot dangles by torn sinew and tenacious bone as it crawls on its belly towards them, gurgling out a string of broken black speech and curses.

Rhodirion flips his blade across the top of his hand, adjusting his grip to plunge it into the creature, before Maria stops him.

“Wait!” She steps forward, just as the uruk tries again to drive its dark, blood-encrusted blade into the elf’s foot. It misses, the knife singing off the edge of a stone. Maria kicks the dagger from its hand and stomps on its wrist, and even as it rears up to roar, slams her shield down across its shoulders, driving its face into the dirt. “What drove you to hunt these pathetic beasts?”

The uruk’s voice comes out with a grunt and a gurgle from some internal wound, and its words are as foul as the rest of it, “I’ll fuck your eye socket before I—”

Maria slams her shield into its back again, and grinds the heel of her boot down on its wrist. It barely flinches. “What are you doing here? Why are you hunting other orcs?”

Maria winces at the vile threats the creature spits out in response, and even the dwarf clucks his tongue at the orc’s shameless perversion. The Soldier shakes his head. This uruk would happily die out of spite to ensure she isn’t able to complete her interrogation.

Luckily, the Soldier is used to dealing with these creatures, and has another tactic.

* * *

“It was reckless,” Steve retorts, somehow managing to shout without raising his voice. The Howling Commandos have been pinned down for days in the same cave, one that the enemy has yet to locate, and one they have no way of escaping unseen. “If they had seen you—”

“At high noon?” Bucky reminds him. “Poor bastard never saw it coming!”

They continue bickering about the orc scout that Bucky had finally killed after twenty straight hours watching it from his sniper’s nest. The signal tower they’d been sent to sabotage had turned out to be nothing short of a fully fledged citadel, made up of a series of fortified chambers cut directly into the natural stone of the Ephel Dúath mountain range. Not only does it control the Barad-dûr defense, but in its strategic position, can signal all the way South to the Morannon, the Black Gate, and Minas Morgul in between. The Howling Commandos hadn’t prepared for an extended, embedded espionage effort, but there’d been enough skill and luck between them to sneak deep into the citadel.

And get hopelessly stuck.

The orcs had unpredictable rotations and sloppy scouting tactics that made them surprisingly hard to reconnoiter. To top it off, an orc encampment lays on a shelf below the cave that the Howlies claimed as a temporary refuge, impossible to reach on foot. Several times, Steve had volunteered to drop down and clear out the nest on his own, relying on the durability of his kind to keep him alive in the fall, but Bucky would hear none of it.

Instead, Bucky had taken a chance, laid in wait on the broken tower peak near their hiding place, and stuck one through with an arrow, killing it in a single shot. He did a good thing to remove one of the scouts that had them trapped there. The elf is probably just pissed he hadn’t managed it himself. It could also be that Steve’s just cranky as a result of being trapped in a cave with seven humans for two days.

Either way, Bucky’s decided he’s being an ass and he’s sick of it.

“Look, elf,” he says. “Even if I was spotted— _which I wasn’t_ —I wouldn’t have led them back here. It would have been my ass alone getting skewered by orcs, the mission would have been—”

“The _mission_!” Steve blurts out, this time his voice does rise, and the sudden shock of hearing an elf shout makes the others sit up in alarm. “It’s _you_ I’m worried about, you insufferable—”

“Oh, here we go…”

“—Arrogant, reckless—”

Bucky rolls his eyes and waves his hand dismissively as the elf continues to grind out insults in a harsh whisper.

“—dangerously naïve, mortal _...hacca_!”

That last one takes Bucky off guard, and he snorts derisively. “So there’s the truth of it? Us poor, lowly humans are nothing compared to the blessed Eldar?”

Steve’s face twists, seemingly stricken by Bucky’s accusation. “You’re _everything_! Your one, single life is so much more precious than—” He stops himself abruptly.

Bucky’s mouth is already open, ready to skewer the elf for the insult he never made, but freezes, abruptly realizing his own misunderstanding.

“What is a _hacca_?” Gabriel asks, breaking the sudden stalemate.

“It means _ass_.” Steve snaps, and Bucky’s mouth clicks shut.

The others burst out in strained, quiet laughter, tears trailing from their eyes as they attempt to remain as silent as possible. Finally, the tension that’s been building for two days—really, for most of their travels on this special operation—melts away as they struggle to breathe.

Steve—their own, personal elf—has gotten attached to his mortal friends. He had never really known any humans before meeting their troupe, even the Dúnedain of Arnor, so now here he is, beset by anxiety he doesn’t quite know what to do with for his human teammates. The elf pinches the bridge of his nose, clearly giving himself time to think.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you to accomplish your task,” he starts. “Of all the kind races of Middle-earth I am finding myself more and more impressed by what you humans are able to do. You have but one, precious life. How could you rush so foolishly to throw it away?”

“We all risk something by being here,” Gabriel tells him. “Doesn’t matter if you’re immortal or not.”

“And we risk more by doing nothing,” Bucky adds, because if Steve really doesn’t understand that, then why is he even there? He looks like he wishes to argue, but instead the elf turns away, back towards the mouth of the cave.

“Steve, don’t—”

“Sh!” The elf hisses. “Something’s coming.”

Steve grabs the collar of Bucky’s cloak and hauls him back from the cave opening, just as a massive, black ballista bolt whizzes into their sanctuary. It slams into the cave’s low ceiling, burying itself deep, like an anchor, with a spray of stone chips and dust. Hanging from the blunt end of the bolt is a gnarled, frayed rope, thick enough to hold a dozen orcs, and Dum Dum curses.

Bucky coughs, shoves Steve back to unpin himself from the wall. “Okay,” he says with a sigh. “Maybe they saw me.”

“We’re doing it my way now,” Steve states, his sword already free. He doesn’t wait for permission. He simply steps off the edge of the cave mouth, dropping directly into a nest of dozens of blood thirsty, battle hardened monsters, the length of his silver blade flickering as he lands with his shield into the face of climbing orcs.

Bucky looks back to his long-time comrades and rolls his eyes. “Well, at least we have a way down now,” he says, taking hold of the well-anchored rope with one hand and unsheathing his glowing blue knife with the other, before he follows the elf into the fray to the sound of the Howling Commandos battle cry.

* * *

“Let me try,” the Soldier suggests, and without awaiting permission, drops to one knee in front of the uruk’s face. The uruk’s huge eyes meet the Soldier’s own, but before it blurts out in sudden, terrible recognition, the Soldier grabs ahold of its massive forehead, and drags its mind into the other realm.

Parth Galen vanishes, the darkness swallowing him up and ripping the uruk’s tainted soul with him. It screams in horror, fighting him, but he cracks open its will, and knows all. This uruk, surviving the Battle of the Morannon, surviving the purge following after, has been running from the plague of humankind. Then, clarity in a world gone mad. A firm hand, guidance, and a new mission: Destroy the weak. Prepare the hoard to rally. Above all, obey the new master. _Obey the new master._

 _Obey, obey, obey_ —

“No!” The Soldier screams, denying this terrible proxy order. “ _Ni indóme vamme!_ ” He flings himself away from the dying Uruk-hai, scrambles backward until he strikes the gnarled roots of the fallen tree. As he gulps in the rich, fragrant air and digs his fingers into the light topsoil, he is reminded that he has returned fully to the land of the living, and the free peoples of Middle-earth have prevailed against the Lord of Darkness. He need not obey ever again.

_Ever again._

“No…” The Soldier whispers, finally catching his breath even as the others stare. The Uruk-hai dares to laugh, a vile, hacking chortle, as if it had been the one who looked into the Soldier’s soul. Then its head simply vanishes in a spray of pink mist after the dwarf’s hammer comes down on top of its skull.

Toni rubs the blunt weapon against the uruk’s thick hide armor to wipe away the gore. “Assuming we all had just about enough of that…”

“I know I’ve had just about enough,” Rhodirion declares, and stands above the Soldier like a thundercloud. “By the will of Lady Galadriel we welcomed you into this party, _Hesohtar_. You hide your face, you hide precious weapons made by _my_ kin, you hide the purpose of your Southern quest, and even hide some secret power to unleash a plague of ice on your enemies—”

“Rhodey,” Toni sighs. “The lad did good, give him a—”

“I shall not! You cannot see it my friend, but when this man touched that foul creature for a mere moment—too quick for mortal eyes—his form became that of a _Nazgûl_.”

There it is. Less than a week in the company of strangers and his darkest truth is laid bare. That word, that curse, lands cold and dead in the center of their small company. _Nazgûl. Ringwraith. Servant of Sauron, slave to the One Ring._

For several seconds, no one speaks, and for the Soldier those seconds reveal to him why it had been a foolhardy choice to travel South. Hadn’t Arnor been his home, so long ago? Shouldn’t he have traveled North? Laid down upon the ruined stones of his former home and finally accept the gift of mortality that all men should be granted after living as long as he?

Maria is the one to break the silence. “Now that that’s cleared up,” she says, her voice lighter than the situation calls for. “Let’s get back to our horses.”

“You can’t be serious,” Rhodirion says, but Maria merely sheathes her weapon, unperturbed.

“I know you have concerns, but I know better than to doubt the Lady Galadriel,” she says. A muscle stands out in Rhodirion’s jaw as he refuses to argue. “Besides, he can hardly be one of the Nazgûl. The ring was destroyed, and with it, his power to keep those dead men among the living. Wraith or wizard it matters not, he comes with us to Minas Tirith.”

Maria is the leader of their group, the emissary of King Elessar and knight of Gondor, yet she is merely escorting the dwarf and his elvish companion, not commanding them. Still, her station seems to have earned her enough respect for her word to be final, and Rhodiron turns away from the Soldier.

The issue seems to be resolved, but this is how it starts. A small fracture in a group, a loss of faith, an unanswered question. The Soldier has seen this before, has caused it on numerous occasions, but now he’s alive and he’s free and he has no reason to hide from other free people.

“I am no wraith,” he chokes out, Westron still strange on his lips but finally breaking loose. “I… My name was lost to me. I was a prisoner for many years. I go to Minas Tirith to seek the Blue Wizard’s wisdom. The Lady Galadriel said he may have a cure for… for the curse of shadow I still bear.”

“Ah,” Maria sighs. “Pallando has inspired many pilgrims to venture to Minas Tirith, seeking word of his travels to the East. He brought with him many strange things, and indeed, plenty of wisdom. It follows clearly why her Ladyship should have sent you on your Southern journey.”

“The warg rider called him Fak Hesohtar,” Rodirion hisses, finally laying all his cards on the table. “ _Lord_ Winter Soldier, in the black speech of Mordor.”

“And they called the ring bearer's _gardener_ the _Terror_ of Cirith Ungol,” Maria responds, rolling her eyes. “Lady Galadriel has not set a spy among us,” she insists. “We ride for Minas Tirith.”

“There’s more,” the Soldier finally admits. “This uruk, the one I touched. I saw his… well, it’s complicated, but they have a new master.”

Toni grunts. “Who has?”

“The uruks. _All_ the uruks of Mordor,” the Soldier says, and finally gets to his feet. “And I saw their plans, gathering a force to attack some ranger outpost in the shadows of Ephel Duath, but I didn’t recognize it. He knew it to be hidden behind a tall waterfall, a window which faces West. The falls gather in a foaming pool, rimmed by sharp rocks.”

“I know it,” Maria says, eyes narrowing. “I know it very well. But it is no longer a refuge for Gondor’s rangers alone. Civilians discovered it and now an entire bloody town has sprouted up out of the woodlands there. Traders and merchants trying to make coin from our struggles. You say this is their target?”

“The target of their strike force, yes.”

Maria faces South, along the broken path towards the beach. “If we cross to the Eastern shore, we can make for Minas Tirith via the garrison at Osgiliath along the way. We’d lose a day…”

Maria looks to Toni as the dwarf considers this change of plans, but he just shrugs. “My Ladyship wouldna’ be much of a weapon if she couldn’t keep an extra day. Isn’t stopping orcs what this is all about, anyway?”

“Then it’s settled,” Maria says, already striding back down the path. “We ride for Henneth Annûn.”

They burn the uruk carcasses, return to their boats, and turn to the Eastern Shore of Nen Hithoel. The Soldier doesn’t say another word, and does his best to avoid Rhodirion’s silent disapproval.


	4. Minas Tirith - The Citadel

After weeks of scouting the Morgul Road, working towards that slow, painful goal to clear orc lurkers from the land of Mordor, it seems to have taken no time at all to retrace their steps back to the base camp pitched at the end of the road leading to Minas Morgul. The mountains rise up around the city, forming a natural defense for what had once been a strategically located overwatch for the lands to the East. Near the end of the second age, King Isildur himself had it built, and at one time the white stone of Minas Ithil drew in moonlight, making it a bastion of hope for all mankind. 

Since having been captured by the Nazgûl, the city had suffered such corruption that it will never again be possible to occupy without poisoning the people within, and so the base camp is on the other side of the ruined bridge, in the ashes of a field once full of toxic white blooms.

The humans must rest and resupply, so Sedryn checks in with his horse who has been patiently awaiting his return. The stables are not much more than a few stakes in the ground and tarpaulin pulled over a wooden frame. The horses are kept at the back of the outpost, where roped-off stalls can be mucked directly into the midden ditch. Sedryn had been the one to teach the humans how to grow a roof of thorny aeglos over the pit to mask the smell, then had to endure the jokes made behind his back about his people ‘shitting flowers.’ 

Such a ridiculous idea, he thinks, trying not to transfer his frustration onto his horse as he runs the curry brush down her back. Humans can accomplish so much in so little time, and yet teeter precariously on the edge of outright barbarism without the intervention of Sedryn’s people. Turma’s ears flicker and she tosses her head, asking for more attention to her mane. 

Sedryn runs his fingers through the coarse hair, still upset for no good reason. Do the humans want to attract pestilence with their open sewage? Because that’s how one attracts pestilence. It’s not that the aeglos plants are simply beautiful— _which they are_ —but their roots purify the midden’s runoff in the soil, their thorns exude a serum that fights infection, and the bold white flowers can be dried and used for a bitter tea that can aid in the healing of deep wounds. They just happen to thrive in midden heaps, absorbing the ammonia in the waste and— 

“Am I interrupting something?” General Fury asks, and Sedryn pauses mid-stroke. Turma isn’t startled by the human’s sudden appearance, but is perhaps a little irritated that he had been combing through the same spot in her mane this entire time.

“No, General,” Sedryn answers, then suddenly steps away from his horse when he recalls that he’d only stopped by here to check on her before he had been supposed to report to the command tent. “Not at all. In fact I owe you a debrief.” 

General Fury heads up the Mordor campaign, and is a fair leader in his own way. He looks over Sedryn with his one eye—the other lost to a troll’s club in the battle of Morannon—then leans his hip against one of the picket stakes. Turma politely nods her head towards him, but he doesn’t seem to notice the horse’s gesture. 

“That you do,” he answers. “And I won’t ask why we’re debriefing in the stables. I know what it’s like to need some distance from a group after a long deployment.” 

Sedryn doesn’t take the bait. Coulson’s team is just as good as any other human cohort, perhaps even better than some he’s served with in the few short months since the Dark Lord’s defeat. 

“We came in contact with someone who appeared human within Shelob’s lair,” Sedryn states, getting to the point quickly. “She fled before we could establish exactly who—or _what_ —she was. We found this weapon of hers, dipped in poison, so she is likely the cause of the poisoned orcs we’ve been encountering. There wasn’t any evidence that the spider herself has resurfaced, if she lives.” 

General Fury takes the weapon from Sedryn, turns it over in his hand, then touches his goatee with one, thoughtful finger. “And you can’t say she was human?”

“To evade us so completely? I doubt it. But a spawn of Shelob taking human form... Seems even more unlikely.”

“Agreed,” Fury says. “Unlikely. I’ll await the rest of your report in my tent. You finish getting Turma ready for your ride to Minas Tirith.” 

“Minas Tirith?” Sedryn frowns, confused. He had planned on reporting to Fury and heading right back out again. One single unknown agent in Mordor is hardly worth his company returning to the capital. “Has King Elessar returned from the North?” 

Fury turns back to him, feigning surprise. “You haven’t heard?”

“We’ve been away for some time,” Sedryn flatly reminds the human, because Fury is the one that sent them on the mission and clearly would have known. He likes playing these games, appearing like he knows more than anyone else. Half the time it’s true, the other half of the time it’s all talk, and yet a _third_ half of the time Sedryn can’t quite tell.

“The blue wizard returned from the East, and he wishes to meet you. I’m sure he’ll be interested to learn of our mysterious spider-woman.” 

Sedryn holds his breath, his mind tumbling back through an age of memories. He had first heard of the wizards long before the War of the Last Alliance. Powerful agents of the blessed Valar who were meant to help their fight against the darkness. Still, he had never met the _Ithryn Luin_ —Blue Wizards—himself. With that thought, he comes back to his conversation with General Fury, already worried about the information that the human had conveniently left out. 

“ _Two_ wizards went East,” Sedryn says with a frown. “Pallando and Alatar.” 

“So they did,” Fury answers with a shrug, not arguing the point. “Pallando the Blue arrived at Minas Tirith not two weeks past, alone. Only now he prefers to be called Ultron the Blue.”

* * *

Gil-galad, dead. 

The High King of Steve’s people. The wisest and strongest of them all. When Steve finally meets the rest of the army, finally reunites with his own side after spending months behind enemy lines with his human companions, the news skewers him like no orc arrow ever could. 

It’s hard to believe that after suffering so great a loss, they could possibly call Sauron’s defeat a victory. The shock keeps him numb at first, cold creeping into his hands and feet, then chilling his very breath.

Then Bucky is there, a guiding light in the darkness of such terrible grief. The human lost his king as well, Elendil Ælfwine, along with his direct lord, Prince Anárion of Arnor. There were no words between them to commiserate, just a silent understanding…

…and much needed warmth. 

Steve is nearly two hundred years old and yet the seven years he spent in this war has aged him as the passing centuries could not. The battlefield has become his home, their sprawling encampment and faded tents a welcome respite despite the mud and blood and misery around them. Steve’s heart has been shattered, the sharp edges catching on his ribs every time he takes a breath, yet unexpectedly, this human with his own broken heart helps him put the pieces back together. 

It takes months to clear the battlefield. Terrible work that hardens them as they find friends, allies, and family among the dead. In that time, Bucky stays by his side, and Steve comes to realize that the pieces of their broken hearts got mixed up along the way, and part of Steve’s own heart now beats in Bucky’s chest. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Steve whispers as he caresses Bucky’s hips and plants a kiss on his belly. A line of dark hair vanishes under the soft linen of Bucky’s breeches, and he can’t get enough of it. 

Bucky chuckles drawing his fingers through Steve’s long, golden hair. Bucky’s own hair is closely cropped in a military cut, and he luxuriates in Steve’s long locks, petting and stroking the fine strands as often as possible. He had said once that it calmed him, to feel something so soft beneath hands that he had thought knew only the shape of violence. 

“An elf calls a human beautiful? The world really has changed.”

“Not an elf and a human,” Steve insists with one last kiss on Bucky’s hip before rising up on his elbows. “Comrades. Friends.”

“Is that what we are?” Bucky says, teasing him with a small thrust of his pelvis. “Just friends?”

Steve laughs. Through all the pain and horror he has found love and Bucky damn well knows it. He sinks back down to his sarcastic lover to shut him up with a kiss.

“Come with us to Osgiliath?” Bucky says, breathless and needy and so unlike himself that it surprises Steve enough to take pause. In the darkness of his tent, Bucky looks particularly vulnerable when he asks again. “Prince Isildur— _King_ Isildur—wishes to honor the Howling Commandos when we reach the garrison, and the work we did behind the lines. It wouldn’t be right if your weren’t there.”

“I’ll request it,” Steve says, but he knows he needs not. He’s one of the few remaining Ñoldor from King Gil-galad’s company. There is no one left to ask.

* * *

The newly reconstructed King’s Road connects the two cities: Minas Tirith, alive and thriving, and Minas Morgul, a dark skeleton of its former self. It is likely the most heavily guarded road in all of Middle-earth, given the king’s renewed efforts to cleanse the wasteland that had once been the land of Mordor. To Sedryn, it will likely always be a doomed place, along with all of Northern Ithilien. Fire still smolders in the ruins of Barad-dûr, where ash wraps everything in a sticky, brown skin. Dagorlad—now known as the Dead Marshes—where the elves lost King Oropher and King Amdír, is nothing more than a toxic swamp. 

It’s hard to imagine that the only thing standing between the realm of the living and a land of utter ruin is Minas Tirith, the human capital struggling with a heritage of greatness that only continues to diminish. Turma easily climbs the wide, sloping streets towards the Citadel, which stands at the very top of the city’s seven levels. Sedryn hasn’t been here since the crowning of King Elessar, after returning from the North too late to be of much use in the pitched battle against Sauron’s forces. The city had still been in shock then, dead being collected from the devastated middle-levels, soldiers and civilians alike deep in mourning. 

By the time he reaches the city’s seat of power, he has passed through a buzzing hub of life and burgeoning prosperity. New shops line the roads, the fresh scent of bread, flowers, and clean linen fills the air. Children play in the streets, darting between the skirts of gossiping civilians. Soldiers are neatly ordered along the walls, and as Sedryn crosses the Court of the Fountain, he marvels at the White Tree of Ithilien, the new sapling still laden with blooms so late in the year. Begrudgingly, Sedryn admits this is the resilience of humans, to recover in a few short months after being faced with the most devastating war of their age.

According to Beregond of the Citadel Guard, this mysterious ‘Ultron’ the Blue has held court in the king’s own council chamber, an honor previously only given to Mithrandir and Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth. The moment Sedryn steps into the brightly lit room, he knows something is amiss. 

“Ah, young Sedryn,” Ultron chuckles, without looking up from the massive tome spread out on the desk before him. He’s standing, leaning over the book as if it owes him its secrets, and turns the page with a frustrated snap. Unlike the other wizards, he seems to have forsaken the harmless, elderly appearance. His beard is shorn close to his face, coming down to a severe point, and his bright, sapphire blue robes adorn a body clad in shining silver armor. It whispers dangerously as he moves, shuffling papers across his work space. “I heard we had a Ñoldor guest assisting us in our efforts of reclaiming the land of Mordor. Welcome.” 

_Guest?_ Sedryn has made his home in Minas Tirith and intends to stay throughout the next age if he is able, forsaking the lands of the Valar and eternal life. And the wizard calls him _guest_?

“I hope I have not interrupted you, honored Istari,” Sedryn says, offering him a bow. “I could hardly believe it when I was told of your return.” 

Sedryn doesn’t recall any description of the blue wizards, but the staff leaning against Ultron’s chair gives him pause. It’s a perfect silver rod, straight as a measuring pole, topped with a spherical jewel that swirls with red light. It’s uncomfortable to look at, and Sedryn diverts his gaze quickly to the wizard’s hands. 

“Yes, I’m sure it came as a surprise, but no greater surprise than when the One Ring finally met its doom.” Ultron takes a seat, leaning back into his chair without extending the offer to Sedryn. “I believe the people of the Far East may still be spinning tales of the great shockwave that flattened the lands around them. I had placed a barrier between them and the Eastern reaches of Mordor, to ensure the forces Sauron fostered there were held back in the coming of the last battle. It shattered like so much glass the moment he was defeated.” Ultron slams the book he had been reading shut, causing Sedryn to blink. “I have never been happier to see one of my spells undone.” 

“Is that why you’ve returned now?” Sedryn asks. “When you and Alatar never responded to our King’s missives, we worried you had been lost.” 

Ultron makes a dismissive and frankly _unattractive_ sound. “High King Gil-galad’s fabled Last Alliance of Elves and Men? And how did that work out for him I wonder. At any rate, Alatar the Blue was a fool. He shall not be missed in Middle-earth.” 

Sedryn doesn’t answer, only stares in shock at the blatant disrespect. He takes in the unfamiliar wizard, searching between the metal plates of gleaming armor for some semblance of the calm, understated wisdom that Mithrandir exudes. Indeed, there is no mistaking the being before him as anything other than a wizard, cold power following him like a shadow in even his slightest movements. That he could say such a thing and be one of the five Istari… 

Ultron chuckles, deep and dark and mirthless. “Oh, I’m sorry. I have been removed from the West for far too long. You must be one of the fair folk who still remember long dead kin.” 

Sedryn swallows, figuring the wizard really means something else by that assumption. “Long dead,” he says quietly, feeling that old wound anew. “And long lost.” 

“Hmm,” Ultron, murmurs, apparently bored. Then he takes a breath, hauls a wooden box up from the floor, and drops it on the desk next to his book. “Speaking of lost, I’ve something to return to Osgiliath. Perhaps you could carry it with you on your way back to Minas Ithil?”

“Minas _Morgul_ ,” Sedryn says, and the wizard looks surprised—either to be corrected so baldly, or to have his requested errand put aside so easily. Sedryn digs his heels in, unwilling to let Ultron get away with it. “The humans have reclaimed the city but Minas Ithil is no more. It will always be a mockery of what once was.” 

Ultron waves a hand dismissively, and his armor sings as he moves. “I suppose we’ll see how deep the rot spread beneath the black stone, eventually. For now, I think we could all do with a little extra—”

He throws open the box’s hinged lid and Sedryn gasps.

“—Perspective.”

Inside the box is a palantír, glowing with age old wisdom and lost secrets. It’s smaller than the ones Sedryn has seen before, either at Osgiliath before the Kinstrife or the one Denethor—the realm’s last steward—had vied for control of here at Minas Tirith. All in all, not much bigger than a ripe apple. It glows with a swirl of stars, verdant green, as if the forest and the heavens met to fill this single space with their incomprehensible dreams.

“I need someone to install this in its rightful home at Osgiliath, as I continue to review this mess Mithrandir left for me,” Ultron explains, waving his hands over the records strewn across the desk. “I’m afraid that without King Elessar, there is no mortal here I can trust with such a relic. Would you mind…?” 

The wizard need not ask. Sedryn would of course be honored to handle such a task, and of course Ultron had known that the moment he had summoned him to the King’s counsel chamber. Something about that makes Sedryn uncomfortable, so before he answers, he simply asks, “Can my pathfinder rangers travel with me?”

Sedryn could swear Ultron’s carefully sculpted smile forms the smallest crack. “The humans? What help would they be able to offer you?” 

Sedryn shakes his head. “Not help. They have spent many long months in Mordor and this mission will do much to improve morale.”

Ultron nods towards the palantír. “They are unable to use it. Humans have long since lost the strength of will.” 

“Evenso,” Sedryn says, chin high and defiant, standing by his request. The wizard sighs and goes back to his book.

“Very well, do as you wish with your humans,” Ultron says, and Sedryn takes up the wooden case holding the beautiful treasure. He’s about to depart when Ultron mumbles, “I care not.”

The lie gives Sedryn pause, and suddenly he thinks to ask, “Where is Prince Imrahil? Before I left for Mordor, he held stewardship of Minas Tirith while King Elessar and Lord Faramir lead the campaign in the North.” 

“Why he rode out to meet them, of course,” Ultron says, waving one hand dismissively as he goes back to his ledger. “No need for the leadership to linger here when there’s far more important battles to be fought elsewhere.”

Despite the rising tide doubt inside him, Sedryn continues from the council chambers towards his new mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on names: 
> 
> "Bucky" a Dúnedain from Fornost in Arnor (true name: Borlas, meaning “enduring joy” in Sindarin)  
> "Steve" is a Ñoldor elf born in Middle-earth (Sindarin name: Sedryn Amathion “faithful one + Shield Son”)  
> Pallando the Blue (Pallado meaning: "East/Uprising") also known as Ultron.  
> Alatar the Blue (Alatar meaning: "Far seer") also known as the Vision.
> 
> Generally, the people of Middle-earth do not have surnames (aside from Hobbits, who are surprisingly modern in that regard.) Instead, they are known as the "son/daughter of" (ie "Gimli, son of Gloin") or they are known from where they are from (ie "Legolas of Mirkwood"). For some, who have accomplished great deeds or hold particular titles, they wind up with additional names. This is seen with "Aragorn II Elessar" or "Arwen Undómiel" or "Arwen Evenstar". 
> 
> Some Marvel characters, typically known by last names (Coulson, May, etc.) are a little unfamiliar when referred to by their first names alone, don't you think?


	5. Henneth Annûn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Namárië" in Quenya means: "Farewell"

_Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad_

* * *

 

The Soldier gives the reins a gentle tug, sideling his horse into the guttered tracks on the edge of the road in order to make way for a cart as its massive, wooden wheels grind past him, carrying great hewn logs banded with iron. The road is wide, well-trodden, but full of unlikely traffic. Maria had mentioned the outpost has been discovered by civilians and turned into a town, words presumably colored by sarcasm. However, the trees indeed give way to rough wooden structures loosely ordered in some semblance of a civilian barter settlement. Boulders rise up in a semi-circle around it, the gaps filled with freshly staked logs, and they pass through a heavy gate, manned by armored soldiers wearing the colors of Minas Tirith. The walls are rough, but sturdy and the boulders provide natural taluses where small, wooden sheds make up elementary watch towers.

Inside, there’s a smithy, clearly marked by the ringing of hammers on anvils, shops selling wares, weapons and armor, a few structures set up as a marketplace for dry goods. Food stalls serve up sizzling meat to a hodgepodge of hungry soldiers and rangers. 

“This… isn’t what the uruk had in mind,” the Soldier murmurs. 

“This isn’t what any of us had in mind,” Maria grumbles. “When I was a ranger under Lord Faramir, the falls fed into a pool that was so sacred we would have shot anyone for trespassing in it and dumped their body along the Morgul Road.” 

Toni interrupts her with a shout. “Is that _lamb_?” The dwarf yanks the reins of his fluffy pony up short. His invention is stored in a small, covered cart that the prissy creature had only deemed to haul after being convinced by Rhodirion’s soft urging. Whatever it is, the invention must be heavy. Toni takes a sumptuous whiff, drawing in the scent of Southern spices with an appreciative whistle. “I guess it’s not a total loss.”

“We’re not here to eat,” Maria reminds him through her teeth, as a group of women shuttle actual _children_ across the busy road, scurrying into a nearby shop as the youngsters laugh and swing swords made from leafy sticks. What first appeared to be the typical chaos of a barter town now appears to be something else a little more organized and a lot more defended. “We need to find the outpost commander, and hope they have some plans for— _whoa_!”

Maria’s richly colored chestnut mare is tall and proud, as even-tempered as her rider, but the moment an old man stumbles into the road and sprawls out before her, the horse gives out a startled cry and dances back.

For just a single heartbeat, the Soldier thinks the old man has done this on purpose, a feint to take them off guard, and his metal hand wraps around the hilt of his knife, freeing the blade before Maria’s horse has time to settle. She drops down to the road, patting her horse’s muscled shoulder, and hands the old man back his staff as she helps him to his feet. The Soldier carefully puts his knife back where it belongs, but not before the old man catches his eye, and he swears there must be some recognition there.

“Are you alright?” Rhodirion frets. The old man’s little pointed cap is askew on closely cropped hair the color of blue heath, and the yellow silk cape twisted awkwardly over dark teal robes. The whole getup is garrish, and stands out so much in the muddy track that it’s hard to believe Maria could have missed him. 

“Yes, yes,” he blurts out, wheezing dramatically. “Oh, dear, but I could use some help to the inn. Could I bother you for a ride on your cart?” 

Toni blinks, and the Soldier looks to Maria for guidance on how to respond. Her job is to protect Toni as he delivers his invention to Minas Tirith, not to allow strangers to ride in the cart beside it. The old man smiles, aware of the tension. He’s whip thin, more robe than man, but the soldier still recognizes underlying strength when he sees it. 

The old man seems to have picked up on their conflict, because he chuckles. He leans heavily onto his staff as if exhausted, but it’s as flashy as the rest of him, made of a gleaming golden wood and carved at the top into a hoop, a glittering chunk of uncut cobalt adorning the center. “Or perhaps, my lady knight would offer an old man her arm?”

The Soldier’s knuckles tighten so hard on the hilt of his knife that Rhodirion glances his way. Perhaps he’s become too suspicious, too used to simply killing anyone in his path that could potentially jeopardize a mission. In this case, fitting in with the rest of his company is the more acceptable course. He holds his action, releasing the knife.

Maria smiles, and bends her elbow towards him. “Maria, of Dol Amroth. Knight-errant of Prince Imrahil in agency to King Elessar. At your service.”

The man smiles. “Around here, they call me Victor.”

“Strange name,” Maria says, direct as always, but Victor doesn’t seem offended. He takes her offered arm with a smile of dazzling gratitude.

“In the common tongue of the East, it means Vision.” 

Maria helps the man cross the dirt road, her horse following dutifully behind, the rest peeling off to the side so that Toni can abandon his precious charge altogether in favor of the lamb-kebab stand. Maria is helpful enough to bring the old man inside the inn’s front door, leaving the Soldier alone with the elf.

“You distrust him,” he murmurs quietly, his keen eyes following Maria through the door of the inn.

The Soldier doesn’t say anything at first, unsure where this line of passive questioning might lead. When he finally answers, it’s in Quenya once again. “I distrust him.” 

“As do I,” Rhodirion agrees, switching to Quenya himself. “His figure may be bent and frail, but I see power there I cannot describe. He hides it well, which is even more suspicious. I wouldn’t have fully realized it,” he glances to the Soldier briefly, as if he’s decided he owes him something other than a suspicious glare for once, “if I hadn’t noticed your own trepidation.”

“Not trepidation,” the Soldier admits. “Restraint.” 

“Ah, delicious!” Toni sighs, stripping nuggets of lamb from their wooden skewers. He holds one kebab between each finger on both hands, grease dripping in his beard and across his wide, flat knuckles. “Rhodey. Mumbles. Got you both one.” 

Mumbles? _Mumbles!_

“ _Hesohtar_ ,” the Soldier says, as the dwarf stands in the shadow of his white mare.

“Too much,” Toni insists, dismissing the objection with a wave of skewers. “If you’re going to give us a fake name, you may as well have one that we all agree on. It’s not even _winter_ , by Durin’s beard.”

Rhodirion laughs at the Soldier’s expense and he realizes he’s being made fun of, but not cruelly. The Soldier remembers this, the gentle teasing that accompanies the comfort of being around trusted comrades. He examines the feeling, so familiar yet uncomfortable to handle, much like a favorite knife, freshly sharpened after a long period of misuse. 

Maria emerges from the inn, helmet tucked under one arm, confusion marring her face with a scowl. “Apparently, the news of an orc raid is known to the people of the town.”

“The rangers catch wind of them?” Toni asks, chewing.

“The old man is not what he seems,” Maria says, but before she can explain, the bright brassy clap of a bell sounds from the fort’s walls.

“Another daylight attack?” Toni remarks, tossing the bare sticks from his snack aside. “These orcs’ve got some stones on ‘em.”

“The fighting Uruk-hai don't fear the sun,” the Soldier grimly reminds him.

“Well, then!” Toni says, leaping up to the seat of his cart as his fluffy pony nervously tosses her head. The fort has come alive by now, soldiers rushing towards the walls, shouting orders at shopkeepers as they drop the shutters to protect their stalls. “Time to put my girl to use!” 

“I’m afraid not,” Maria says, climbing onto the back of her own horse. “Our mission is to deliver this weapon to Minas Tirith intact. You’ll follow me to the refuge and barricade it in. Rhodirion and Hesohtar will aid the fort defenses.” 

The dwarf grumbles into his beard and his shoulders slump but he doesn’t otherwise object. The Soldier, on the other hand, makes no move to follow Rhodirion when the elf turns towards the gate. Maria stops her horse, realizing her mistake. 

“I issue you no orders,” she quickly explains. “But if you should find yourself with any desire to kill orcs, they could surely use your skill on the wall.” 

With that, Maria kicks her war horse into action, leading Toni and his cart off the road and into the scrub that hides the once-secret entrance to the caves of Henneth Annûn. Before him lies another choice, to potentially expose his curse yet again, this time to strangers who have no such guidance from the Lady Galadriel to mark him friend or foe, or to remain a bystander.

These Uruk-hai are being driven by some new master, one that emboldens them to command their legion against a fortified settlement and incur the wrath of all of Gondor with their trespass. At the idea of defying this new evil, this slave driver and master of fel creatures, the Soldier will happily ride out in defense of this developing town. 

Rhodirion has already doubled back towards the gate, likely to support whatever first line defenders are in place, so the Soldier leaves his horse near the inn and sprints ahead. By now, he knows how to slip in between men and beasts alike to avoid being seen, vanishing into shadows even during broad daylight. It makes him a more efficient killer, and faster on foot than horseback. 

The moment he reaches the wall, he pulls his knives free and vaults over the staked logs, knocking an orc arrow out of the air as he clears the parapets. As he descends, he releases his hold on his earthly form, embracing the coldness of the other side. His body slips into shadow, nothing more than an imprint of a man as his blades find their first target. An Uruk-hai in battered armor, still sporting the peeling paint of a white hand, falls from the wall as the Soldier yanks his knives away and twists them towards the next assailant. 

The Uruk-hai usually attack in quads, four-by-four with four leaders always driving from the far back of any assault. Their tactics are crude, violent, but not without some semblance of order to embolden them. Without those leaders, the quads quickly disintegrate, becoming easier to route. The raid seems to be about forty Uruk-hai strong, quads of archers further back with the majority storming the settlement’s fortifications. The Soldier slips past a few, his knives like silver razors making quick cuts into the exposed flesh on the sides of the uruks or backs of their knees, enough to slow them down but not worth stopping for the coup de grâce. 

The instant one spots him, the Soldier shadow steps, his visible form all but evaporating into mist before any one of the creatures can pinpoint the agent in their midst. The experience itself is much like blinking, moments of blackness followed by a sudden reappearance of the world around him, only further along his path. Brushing against the wraith world in order to leap forward has an uneasy side effect, a feeling as though he’s both traveled a great distance and no distance at all, simultaneously. The Soldier stops behind a broken boulder beside the track the uruks had formed as they cut their way through the forest, just long enough to observe them. One of them, wearing a leather helm topped with a wide, flat crescent, roars in frustration at their last volley. 

“You miserable shit-for-brains!” The creature bellows in the Black Speech. It has skin the color of dried blood, and a massive, disfiguring scar gaping along its right shoulder, the bone visible and adorned with a great metal spike. “Wasting arrows on trees when there are men to stick like pigs? Advance! Now! Or I’ll strangle you with your own entrails!”

The rock that the Soldier has hidden behind has a young tree growing from the crack in its middle, and from here he springs across the distance between himself and the quad leader. The Uruk-hai turns, distracted by the tree’s sudden movement, but the Soldier is already behind him. His knife drives home at the base of the uruk’s skull, and the creature’s tongue juts from its mouth as it hisses out a dying breath. One of the Uruk-hai archers closest to the leader turns to see it collapse into the forest topsoil, but the Soldier is already gone, trees flickering past him as he hunts the next Uruk-hai leader, and the next, and the next.

It doesn’t take long for their ranks to descend into a panic, met with unexpected resistance at the supposedly vulnerable human outpost, and suffering a phantom killer within their loose confederation of disparate warriors. The Soldier makes sure to destroy the uruks furthest away from the walls, out of sight of the humans sending arrows into the invaders, and soon runs out of targets. Cheers ring out along the walls, and the Soldier lets loose a sigh, settling back into his own skin. The shoulder of his metal arm aches as it always does after such use, but his knives are dark with black blood, sated for now.

By the time the gate reopens, the humans have stacked the Uruk-hai carcasses on a wheeled palette, and the ale stand across the street from the inn is already serving up tankards to the rangers, exhausted from their efforts on the wall. The Soldier avoids the commotion, the cheers, and even has to glare at the one ranger that attempts to make eye contact with him until she takes the hint and congratulates the next fellow who walks by.

Their unlikely fellowship had made no clear plans to regroup after the skirmish, so the Soldier heads back to the inn where they’d been last together, hoping that at least his horse may still be at the trough. A few relieved civilians start emerging from the small shops, giddy with the sudden thrill of victory, and the street is crowded by the time he spots his bored mount. His horse is grey, a tired pack animal from Gondor that Maria had brought with her for her own journey, and hardly energetic enough to flee in the chaos. Still, Maria stands beside it, clutching its reins in a gauntleted fist as if it might bolt. Her silver armor is spattered with orc blood, her sword free at her side as if she still expects an attack. Rhodirion and the dwarf are nowhere to be seen. 

“I think you’ll want to join us in the refuge,” she says with a dangerous expression as she looks the Soldier directly in the eye. “Borlas, son of Eruion.”

* * *

“And you will meet me in Imladris?” Steve asks again, and Bucky laughs. 

It’s amazing how he had never seen the way the tiny lines around Steve’s eyes can give away his anxiety before they became lovers. The elf had stayed behind with Bucky at Osgiliath as they rebuilt the garrison, securing the river from invasion if the Easterlings decided to take advantage of the West’s weakened forces. Their time seemed to come to an end at once, as Bucky had been summoned to Minas Tirith along with all the other regimental commanders, for the crowning of King Isildur. Steve himself only just received word that the Ñoldorin are now gathering at Imladris, under Lord Elrond’s rule. If he wishes to still have a place with his people, Steve needs to return to his life as _Sedryn Amathion_ , and Bucky cannot go with him. 

“The shards of Narsil are coming to Minas Tirith only for the ceremony,” Bucky explains, yet again, fastening his cloak with his ithildin brooch. It’s not as if Steve has forgotten, but Bucky suspects he appreciates the reassurance. The elf’s ears turn a lovely shade of pink when he’s worried, and Bucky can’t help but indulge him. “And I’ve already put in the request to the crown Prince Elendur to join the retinue to Rivendell to enshrine it there once our king sits properly on his throne.”

Steve’s helmet is trapped under his arm, where he taps one, nervous finger against the side of the metal, and makes no move to leave the room Bucky had claimed in Osgiliath’s temporary barracks. His bright blue eyes flick to the narrow bed they had shared for some weeks, the washstand, the small shaving mirror he had given Bucky as a gift. 

“How long are a few months in the life of an elf, at any rate?” Bucky says, breaking the painful silence, and Steve’s gaze finally meets his own.

Rather than puff out some frustrated response like Bucky had expected, his brows go up in obvious pain, and Steve admits, “ _Eternity._ ”

“Teasing you was more fun when we were at war...” Bucky tries to laugh at his own dark humor, but even he has a hard time swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat. 

The hollow call of an elvish horn sounds, and Steve’s mouth drops with all their unspoken goodbyes. Then, before they could agonize over it any further, he pulls Bucky in by the back of the neck and presses his forehead into Bucky’s own. 

Steve whispers, “ _Namárië, Borlas._ ” 

“Goodbye, Sedryn” Bucky rushes to reply, breathless. “For now.” 

Only later does Bucky realize that had been the very first time they had spoken each other’s true names.

They had no idea that it would be the last.

* * *

The name strikes the Soldier as surely as a stone. His first instinct is to run, to bolt for the lands of his past life, when Borlas, son of Eruion had been a real person and not this diminishing shadow. The urge is so strong, it’s hard to think of a reason why he should even fight it. Is the Lady Galadriel’s faith in him so misplaced that he’d run at the first sign of his monumental sins being exposed? He had promised her he would seek help.

Maria’s patience thins, and she guides the Soldier’s horse to follow her. “Our new friend may have an answer you seek,” she explains. “Though I believe we should all like a few more answers than what we were previously given. Remain with us or depart, I care not.” 

A way out, freely given. 

The Soldier can’t quite bring himself to give into his panic. The Lady Galadriel had saved him from his miserable fate, then placed him with this company for a reason. It certainly hadn’t been for his safe passage South, since there are few left in Middle-earth who could pose him any real threat. Trusting anyone isn’t something he has had much experience with in an age, but he has already come so far.

“Very well,” he says, falling into step beside her.

The opening to the refuge is practically invisible in the fading light, nestled between a leafy hill and a rocky outcropping that blocks a hidden passage from view. Inside, a tunnel slopes gradually down towards the canyon, and the air grows damp as the roar of the water grows louder. Here, there are a series of caverns large enough for stores, horses, and men, austere but well supplied and surprisingly tidy. There are a few rangers speaking in hushed tones with an armored knight, someone tending a line of horses. They pass by the guard, unhindered, and the Soldier spots the dwarvish cart and Toni, sitting on an upturned barrel at a table with Rhodirion and the old man Maria had previously escorted into the inn. 

“Ah,” Rhodirion softly sighs, catching sight of the Soldier in the dim torchlight. “The Dúnedain.” The dwarf puts his chin on his hand, apparently not at all surprised to see him, while Maria leads the Soldier’s horse to stand beside the dwarf’s pony. 

The old man—Vision, his name is—has left his funny little hat on the rough hewn table in front of him, staff propped up against the dark, stone wall, as if nothing more than an eccentric walking stick for an old man in his dotage. The truth of it is abruptly so obvious that the Soldier stops in his tracks.

“ _Istari_ ,” the Soldier realizes with a gasp, the full power of the relic revealed since the old man dropped whatever shroud he had used to conceal his power.

As a rule, the Soldier distrustswizards. Only one has ever been his ally, but that wizard had been proven false. A villain clad in white, a conjurer with a voice that twists freedom into poisonous captivity. It took an oath to the Lady Galadriel before she trusted him to travel out of Lorien, that he would indeed make an effort to seek out the blue wizard residing in Minas Tirith. He made no such promises to trust the wizard before him. 

The Solder makes quick notes of the cavern’s exits, the roaring waterfall making the most obvious one to the West, but the tunnel they arrived in could likely be just as easily (and more dryly) reached. 

“Peace, Borlas, son of Eruion,” Vision urges, hands laid bare, as if it matters that he is unarmed. “I have been looking for you for a very long time.”

Somewhere along the line, someone had handed the dwarf a mug of ale, and he mutters darkly into it. “Doesn’t look much like a _Borlas_ to me…”

“ _Hesohtar,_ ” the Soldier answers firmly. “Borlas, son of Eurion died a long time ago.” 

“Indeed he did,” Vision agrees. “Which is why I am particularly keen to hear your story, if you’re keen to share it.” 

“I am not,” the Soldier tells him.

“Three wizards are widely known,” Rhodirion starts, relaxed in his own seat next to the wizard. “Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and _Mithrandir_ , now known as Gandalf the White. Perhaps before our companion offers you his story, you could share the name we might know you by.”

“Of course, Rhodirion of Mirkwood.” The Soldier takes Vision’s smile as manipulative, showing off how much he knows of every member of their company. “Alatar the Blue, I was once called. It has been many thousands of years since that name had a wizard to go with it.”

“The _Blue_ —” the Soldier blurts out in Westron before his mouth twists shut and he loses his words to a stutter. He switches languages once again to Quenya. “You were the one who went East. The Lady Galadriel sent me to Minas Tirith for your council.”

Vision’s pause is brief but telling before he answers. “ _Pallando_ the Blue is currently taking up residence in Minas Tirith. He is likely the blue wizard our Lady of Light has heard tell of, as I did everything I could to come West without anyone’s notice. Indeed, Pallando has become quite powerful in the East, so seeking his council is well advised. I came to warn you of another danger.”

“This is why I urged you to join us,” Maria says, face grim. “He hasn’t even gotten to the best part yet.”

Vision nods. “Another, much stronger enemy moves further South, on Osgiliath. Lead by an agent skilled enough to hide from my sight…”

“You are skilled enough to hide from ours,” Rhodirion points out. The Soldier is surprised to hear the elf is still as skeptical as he is. It’s refreshing, like he finally has someone on his side. He never would have expected that to come from Rhodirion, but perhaps he’s wary of everyone. 

Vision inclines his head to the elf, ceding the point. “I wasn’t sure what your reaction may be had I openly approached your whole party on the road. I still prefer to go unnoticed.” 

The Soldier flicks his gaze to the wizard’s gleaming staff, then back down to the bright yellow pointed hat on the table. “Your costume choice certainly is a subtle look.” 

Vision’s eyes go wide before he snorts in rude laughter. “My attire would have been quite inconspicuous among the citizenry of the far East, I assure you! I haven’t had time to find something local.”

Maria takes a seat at the end of the table, placing herself between the wizard and the Soldier’s position where he remains standing. “You mentioned the Uruk-hai are now answering to a new master,” she says. “This master could be the one moving on Osgiliath. The garrison there is still not defensible since the war. Most of the structures were destroyed in the last occupation, and now the city is full of tradesmen. Laborers repairing what little remains, rebuilding the walls and ramparts. An attack would be devastating.”

“To what end?” Rhodirion asks. “The enemy is defeated. Even if they should capture the garrison, the men of Gondor wouldn’t stand for it. They would be routed within a day.”

“I don’t believe the Osgiliath attack will be as foolish as what we saw here,” Vision says and Maria finally looks at him askance. If there is one thing that the Soldier recalls from his time as a human, it’s that they rarely take kindly to others mocking the valiant efforts of their kin. Vision doesn’t seem to notice the tension, and continues. “The enemy is skilled at forcing another to do his bidding. I have my suspicions it will come from a single agent. Corrupted or foolish, I know not. All I know, is that the palantír of Barad-dûr was found, and a new Master-stone crafted. Installing it at the altar in Osgiliath is their chief purpose.” 

Maria stands, her armor singing with purpose. “We must warn the king! Mithrandir will know—”

“Mithrandir and King Elessar’s company are five _hundred_ miles away,” Rhodirion reminds her, miserably.

Maria glances quickly at the dwarf, than at his cart, still hitched to the pony. Toni shrugs his huge shoulders. “Osgiliath, eh? Well. Isn’t that on the way?” 


	6. Osgiliath

Sedryn doesn’t care for Osgiliath. The city had once been Gondor’s joint capital between the North and South, before plague, war, and time itself had turned it into a dusty ruin. He had never seen the city in its prime, when the massive stone bridge at its heart had been a main point of crossing for the Anduin river, and at the bridge’s center, the Dome of Stars, which had supposedly mapped the vast ocean of the heavens. Sedryn had only seen the city after it had been converted to a strategic garrison, quartering soldiers and protecting the West from the forces of darkness.

It hadn’t been a pretty sight then, stripped of all signs of domestic life, civilian leisure, or art, to make room for armories, training yards, parade grounds, barracks. Still, the city hadn’t been without its charms, at the time...

Sedryn doesn’t know what to think of the current Osgiliath. Part of King Elessar’s efforts to strengthen the kingdom is to put the civilian population to work while the farming territories struggle to recover. Wooden scaffolding laces the taller structures, heavy carts loaded with white stone line the streets, and everywhere the industrious clink and bang of hammers and chisels ring out, the scrape and grind of trowels and shovels. All part of the cacophonous music of industry as men and women reclaim their ancient city, inch by inch.

Turma gives an unimpressed snort, and Sedryn pats the side of her neck as he softly speaks to her in his own language. “Aren’t you at least glad to be away from that cursed shadow?” She is, but she won’t admit it, and continues down the lane ahead of his human pathfinders. 

Melinda has to grab Clinton’s attention with a wave, catching him gazing back towards the South, too distracted to watch the conversation. Phillip’s team had been honored to join the mission, just as Sedryn had expected, and even Peter had managed to stand a little taller after glancing the palantír for the brief moment Sedryn had dared show it to the mortals. Only Clinton seems preoccupied with returning to Mordor, apparently eager to continue hunting down the remaining orc filth along the Morgul Road.

Just another reason that Clinton is peculiar, even by human standards.

Their horses pick their way carefully over the broken cobble streets, and the group is forced to divert their course several times after finding a great construction work blocking the path. Eventually, it brings them close to the buildings that have once again become a barracks for soldiers. Tall, narrow dormitories with upper stories that have long since crumbled, but recognizable enough that Sedryn finds himself drifting into a long lost memory. 

The courtyard down this lane had been different before, the trees larger, overgrown grass choking unkempt streets. The area hadn’t been popular with the civilians who had remained throughout the war, nestled between other, larger structures, too far from the river and too close to the stables.

There had been a functioning water pump at the end of the lane, though, and a few food carts made a living feeding hungry soldiers. Sedryn hadn’t minded being close to the animals, either, proud war horses scarred from too many battles, like the rest of them. It had been a humble time in his life.

“Captain?” Phillip’s voice brings him back with a jolt, and he turns away from the narrow lane quickly, only now realizing Turma had sensed his hesitation here and had stopped, letting his memories run away with him. Phillip actually looks concerned, while the others are simply surprised, and somewhere along the line, a newcomer has joined their group that Sedryn hadn’t even noticed. “Is everything alright?” 

The newcomer is on foot, a man wearing the soft leather armor of a herald. His dark skin marks him as a man of Anórien, and he politely awaits Sedryn’s answer, watching with large, brown eyes.

“I— Yes, thank you.” Sedryn doesn’t have to explain himself to the humans, and doesn’t want to encourage the unwanted ghosts circling his thoughts to stay any longer than they already have. Instead, he clears his throat and dismounts his horse with the others. “My apologies. Are you Samwise, son of Willam? Ultron the Blue told us to look for a herald at the bridge.” 

“Just Sam, please,” the herald says, surprising Sedryn by bowing fist-to-heart, in the Elvish manner. “Welcome to Osgiliath! And please, don’t feel the need to apologize. We all have a few rough memories coming back to us from this place. I imagine some more than most.”

Sedryn doesn’t know what to say to that, so he returns the greeting. “Sedryn, of Rivendell.” 

“Rivendell?” Sam glances up quickly. “I thought Sedryn Amathion was of Forlindon?”

“Not for a long time,” Sedryn tells him, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. 

Sam seems to take the hint anyway, and offers an understanding smile with a gesture towards the road leading back towards the bridge. “We can quarter your mounts at the military stables,” he explains. “Our route will be easier to navigate on foot.”

True to Sam’s insight, the road to the bridge from the barracks has been altered with a series of stairs and sharp turns, where the various levels of the city have been repaired and modernized, and new levels built right on top of older ruins. It’s nearly unrecognizable since the last time Sedryn had walked these streets, but Sam moves confidently over paths already well known to him.

“Lucky you found us,” Phillip says as they pass through a narrow alley and finally emerge in front of the Western half of the bridge. “Even we might have gotten lost in that maze and our horses wouldn’t have thanked us for the attempt.” 

Turma wouldn’t have had a problem navigating the narrow, stone alleys or hopping up steep steps, but the human horses aren’t nearly as nimble, and Clinton seems in need of constant reminders that they are there on a mission, and not to inspect the road behind. The man seems so focused, that Sedryn begins to sense that there may in fact be someone following them, but figures the human’s paranoia is just infecting him and shakes it off.

“How did you find us?” Peter speaks up.

“I received a falcon from Minas Tirith that your group was coming,” Sam explains, waving them past the guard standing at the foot of the bridge. “I figured the construction by the market would have diverted you.”

“I’ve heard of Anórien falconers,” Melinda says. “Is it true you can recieve missives from Minas Tirith in a matter of minutes?” 

Sam chuckles. “Twenty minutes, round trip! Though most of that time would be waiting for the heralds in Minas Tirith to relay the message and take down the reply.” 

Mac whistles, clearly impressed. “Incredible…”

“It’s mostly the bird,” he insists, palms out, humbly surrendering any of his own bragging rights. “I’ve been lucky enough to have Redwing since he was a hatchling. Couldn’t ask for a better messenger. It’ll be nothing really, once we get the seeing stones back.” 

Sedryn pauses at that. “I wasn’t aware Ultron the Blue shared the purpose of our mission.”

“What else could it be,” Sam says. “We had to prepare the stone’s chamber, since apparently it has a particular altar it must rest upon in order to properly function. Worry not,” he adds, picking up on Sedryn’s caution. “I’m not in the business of sharing State missives without knowing their proper audience.”

What’s left of the Dome of Stars rests on the Western side of the city’s central bridge. Lucky for them, as the bridge itself has long since failed in the center, and now great wooden support pylons have been set to temporarily shore up the West side as workers repair the once magnificent structure, while the East side of the bridge still appears weak, crumbling around the edges like stale bread. Workers have not yet repaired much of the palace, but the dome itself seems to have a new series of vaults built on top of the central rotunda. Sam leads them through a row of what will maybe become arches once they are completed, and up a few temporary wooden steps. Inside, the bright blue and gold tilework on the floor nearly takes Sedryn’s breath away.

Geometric shapes bloom before them in a wash of lapis lazuli mosaic. It spreads from a central inlay of iridescent opal the shape of a star. It’s beautiful, like something his own kin would have devised, and yet there’s something more mathematical about it that makes it uniquely human, nothing that could be seen in nature’s swirling artistry. 

“The floor is original,” Sam explains as they pass over it with their dirty boots. “Supposedly, the people tried to disguise this section of the palace as some kind of barn and covered the floor with straw and wooden planking.” 

“Too bad that didn’t save the rest of it,” Melinda laments.

“No, but that protected it when most of the upper levels collapsed,” Sam says. “We found the seeing stone’s altar in the Anduin when the engineers got to working on the bridge supports. I have a feeling we’re not done uncovering some other relics from mankind’s past.” 

“Hm,” Sedryn says. “Much was already lost the last time I had stepped foot in Osgiliath, and that was just after the Dark Lord’s _first_ defeat.” 

The humans around him stop and look back, open shock painted across their faces, and Sam himself turns in confusion. It may be the first time he has ever spoken of himself, however carelessly, and perhaps the humans are simply surprised about his age. He doesn’t consider it a secret, and finds their scrutiny uncomfortable, so he continues past them. 

“I believe we’re to go upstairs?”

“Er,” Sam starts, recovering from the awkward moment. “Right, no. It’s actually in the palace courtyard. The altar is too heavy to lift, so we’ve got it attached to pulleys to bring it into the dome. This way.” 

They walk through the dust of what had once been a grand hall, over rotted tapestries and fallen statues, then a large cavernous space with wooden joists set up to mark the building of new rooms, and finally reach an open courtyard. The space is lined with a new collonade, half-finished and left for now as the workers took to the river to fix the foundational issues beneath their feet. The sun is low in the East, casting long shadows towards them, sending the workers home for the evening. The river is close enough to smell, to hear, and overall the city seems at rest, peaceful after a hard day of surviving once more. 

The altar itself is impossible to miss, chunky black stone crushing the grass beneath it with its weight. A massive bowl is carved in the center where the master palantír once rested. The original master stone had been as tall as a man, heavier than what any one of them could possibly carry, and the altar had to bear up that weight. The only thing beautiful about it is the Tree of Gondor carved into the altar’s pedestal, topped with the seven stars of the House of Elendil, and inlaid with precious ithildin. It all seems a bit severe to place the beautiful green palantír given into his care by the wizard, but who is he to question the Istari?

Sedryn takes the box from the leather strap behind his back, eases open the latch, and beholds it once more. “Before I place it here, I had been instructed to take your oath of—”

The subtle sound of a blade slicing through air alerts him, and all at once Sedryn spins out of its path and chaos erupts around them.

* * *

Like many of his Ñoldor kin, Sedryn makes a home for himself in Imladris, the valley of Rivendell. Located at the edge of a narrow gorge of the river Bruinen, but well hidden in the moorlands and foothills of the Misty Mountains, the Last Homely House East of the Sea is tranquil, protected, and isolated.

Unlike the other survivors of the War of the Last Alliance, Sedryn has found little peace in Lord Elrond’s domain. He has done all he could in the first weeks of his arrival, picking apartments close to the library—Bucky would love to get lost in the pages of their finest collection—and making sure there’s plenty of sunlight, both for the human to read and Sedryn to draw. 

It’ll be perfect, if his lover ever shows up.

When Sedryn isn’t patrolling their quiet borders, hoping to encounter a Gondorian emissary any day, he occupies himself by studying the history of mortal and Eldar unions. No love is forbidden among his people, but it is widely known that strange things happen in such marriages. Elves become mortal, mortals become stars, maiar become nothing more than a song. Some unions are forever doomed, like that of Beren and Lúthien, though he wouldn’t refer to it as such in the presence of Lord Elrond, their half-elven descendent. 

This research becomes torture in itself, keeping Bucky—that is, _Borlas, son of Eruion_ —always in his thoughts, dragging out month after month as King Isildur puts off Lord Elrond’s council ever longer. 

Three years since the end of the war, three years since the Dark Lord’s destruction, and still King Isildur has yet to visit Imladris baring the shards of Narsil. What had first been simple impatience crumbles into anxiety, as rumors reach their valley of orcs and evil creatures being spotted West of the Anduin, apparently still seeping from the open wound of Mordor. So Sedryn is always awake, watching the stars, whispering private prayers to Eärendil in particular, the star of ‘high hope.’ The Ñoldor already hold the stars in honor, but Sedryn feels as if Eärendil might burn with a guiding light for his own personal fate, as in his studies he uncovered that the light comes from Eärendil, the half-elven father of Lord Elrond, who took one of the fabled Silmarilli into the sky when the Valar Manwë granted him safe harbor in the Undying Lands, despite his half-mortal heritage, and mortal wife. 

The sun’s rise over the valley’s steep western walls extinguishes the stars, one after the other, until only Eärendil is visible in the inky blue sky. It’s Sedryn’s final order to get some rest, before resuming his vigil along their borders in the morning. He closes his book, a poem he hadn’t been terribly invested in, and gives the star one last look. Then, just before he brings his gaze back down to earth, the star flares red. 

“What is this…” Sedryn murmurs, rather than his usual prayer for word of Isildur’s company. It’s already late autumn, the season too far along for red stars, and only Eärendil seems to have taken on this ruby glow. “What are you telling us?” 

As if in answer, the high wail of the horn at the Ford of Bruinen sounds, and Sedryn looks back sharply at the sky. Eärendil is shining silver once more, as if it never wavered, but Sedryn’s heart is already thudding against his ribs, threatening to break free to meet the visitor. The horn sounds again, and Sedryn sprints down the valley’s paths towards its call, grinning. The horn sounds twice for expected visitors, thrice only for danger, so it must finally be Isildur’s company, come at last to enshrine the shards of Narsil in Elrond’s house, and to bring Borlas to Sedryn’s side once more. He skids to a halt at the horn’s third cry, and tries to grasp Eärendil’s light again through the trees. It’s completely gone by now, vanished in the dawn’s pale light. 

“No...”

Sedryn practically flies down the road, passing the soldiers that quickly mustered at the sound of the horns, and skids around corners, heedless of anything in his path until he reaches the lower valley gate. He gasps for breath when he finally comes in sight of their visitor, a ragged Dúnedain, someone he recognizes from the war—Isildur’s young squire.

“Ohtar!” Sedryn calls out, rushing to meet him. 

The Rivendell guards ease him gently from his saddle, as he clutches a soft leather bundle to his chest and his horse totters. The steed gasps for breath, spitting foam from her mouth, flanks bleeding from being over-spurred.

“Captain Amathion!” The squire cries out in recognition, then nearly collapses into the guard’s arms. “We were waylaid by orcs in the Gladden Fields,” he quickly explains, as if his words must continue his sprint towards safety. “His Majesty ordered us to flee or we would not have left his side. Never! Yet, he deemed this too important….” the young man opens his arms, and there among the folds of leather, the dark silver pommel of the sword that cut the Ring of Power from Sauron’s hand. Then Ohtar begins to openly weep. “Please help us!”

Elrond’s people waste no time, and when they ride out to the aid of Isildur’s company, Sedryn doesn’t just go with them, but leads their column across the Misty Mountains himself. 

The Gladden Fields, _Loeg Ningloron_ in Sindarin, lies to the west of the Anduin river, along a tributary from the mountains, known as Sîr Ninglor. Since the Anduin has already flooded this late in the season, the fields have sank under a large marshland, leaving only small islets filled with reeds, rushes, and vast clumps of yellow irises. The flood had forced Isildur’s company to take the road on the sheer slopes on the eastern banks of the Anduin, heading North towards young King Thranduil’s Woodland Realm, but Sedryn and his retinue discover corpses as far South as the Lake Mirrormere, near the Eastern gate of Khazad-dûm.

As immortals, Sedryn and his folk have no fear of death, but it is mauldin work, and all the while Sedryn finds himself refusing to recognize any of the pale faces as Borlas, son of Eriuon, who had been meant to be among them.

Two hundred of the King’s personal guard slain, and King Isildur himself still counted among the missing. They find perhaps ten times that number of orc carcassas. Miserable, twisted creatures, as hideous in death as they are in life, clogging the streams and soaking the ground with their black blood. For them to be so driven to throw themselves in such numbers at such a mighty foe as Isildur’s trained soldiers is proof of their madness and bloodlust.

Isildur’s sons, Aratan and Ciryon, are the first of the three princes whose bodies they recover. Eventually, they find the retinue of the third and eldest, Elendur, who seems to have made his last stand at the banks of the Anduin.

“Captain!” One of the younger soldiers calls, kneeling between a thatch of crushed, yellow gladden. “The prince!” 

Sedryn hurries over, careful to walk on top of the reeds rather than sink in the mud beneath his feet. “Alive?” 

“No, sir,” the soldier answers, lifting the human by the shoulders. The golden wings of his crown mark his rank, the silver stars on his torn cloak the symbol of his house. If Borlas had survived, he would have stayed by Elendur’s side, and now that the proof of the human’s utter destruction lies before him, Sedryn can feel the razor sharp pain of despair working its way through his resolve. The young soldiers speaks again, foolish enough to put all their fears into words. “Does this mean the kingdoms of men—”

“We need not speculate,” Sedryn interrupts sharply, brushing a long lock of hair from the dead prince’s face. “Men are more resilient than we often give them credit for. They will find a way to rally from this.” 

Then, as if possessed, the Prince’s corpse convulses out of the young elf’s grasp, and he leaps backwards with a shout. Sedryn drops to his knees, moving Elendur’s body aside to uncover an even more surprising sight. A single man, his scalp torn and caked with blood, blinks with dazzled eyes into the grey twilight. 

“Elves…?” He mutters dumbly, his head lolling as Sedryn tries to drag him out of the mud. His body had nearly been completely enveloped in the muck beneath Elendur, keeping the prince above the worst of the mud, but also hiding himself completely. 

“Take care,” Sedryn quietly tells him in the Westron. “You are gravely wounded.” 

“My prince,” the man sputters out. “Oh, my prince!” 

“He has fallen,” the young soldier tells him, and Sedryn nods, regretting to have to tell the suffering human such terrible news. 

It takes some time to get the man free, to dry him off and bring them to their small camp. With some warmth and desperate healing, he is able to tell them his name, Estelmo of Arnor, and of their plight. Isildur sending Ohtar away with the shards of Narsil. Surviving for several days before Prince Elendur demanded the king flee. The ferocity of the orcs, trailing after Isildur, even after he had vanished. 

“Vanished?” Sedryn repeats, wondering about the peculiar way the man stutters when he says the word.

“Yes,” Estelmo whispers before he loses his breath to a rattling cough. The human groans before he speaks again. “It was such a shock. One moment the king is whole, standing before us, and the next he is gone! Blinks out of existence. I was so dismayed at the sight that I’d have been killed on the spot if it hadn’t been for Borlas—”

“Borlas is alive?” Sedryn blurts out, then leans back, scrambling to get ahold of his mounting desperation.

Estelmo squints into their low fire, as if forced to drag the memory past the horrible wound on his head. “After he stopped the orc trunchion that nearly took my head, he—It was a terrible wound. An axe, right above the elbow. If he survived, it hadn’t been for long…” 

Sedryn nods, and swallows whatever words he could have said. He rises and walks away from the camp, unable to stand any company, human or elf. He makes it to the Anduin, that wide, beautiful river that burbles past, heedless of their small lives, washing away the blood of generations in its steady, peaceful way. He finally breathes as he sends his gaze upwards, towards Eärendil, and a great, wracking shudder escapes his chest. 

“Please, please, please…” He whispers, no longer praying but _begging_ , unblinking in that silver light diffused by the thick clouds, until his pale eyes take too much and begin to water. Still, he doesn’t look away, letting the tears fall. “Please, what grace has been given to me… Let it pass to him, let it _keep_ him...” 

Perhaps it is Eärendil answering as the dark clouds begin to drift apart, opening a window for the bright light of the moon. Sedryn lets it wash over him, transforming his tears into silver streams down his cheeks, and just as he thinks he can no longer bear the intense light, another sparkle catches his eye, back down on earth. There, among the reeds and muck, on a shred of blue cloak, is a brooch of ithildin in the shape of a single spread wing. It glows white, the rare metal pulling in the moonlight from above. Sedryn gently picks it up, and beneath the soaked, ruined cloth of the attached cloak he finds a mangled human arm, pressed deep into the mud, severed just above the elbow.

Star of ‘high hope’, indeed.

* * *

Sedryn launches himself sidelong, turning his center of gravity over as he leaps from the path of daggers that streak by as flashes of shadow, then vanish when they strike nothing but the stones around them. He lands softly and takes just enough time to tuck the palantír safely back into its leather pouch on his belt before he has to move again, this time out of the path of a cloaked and hooded figure descending from the lintel of the unfinished colonnade.

“Ambush!” Phillip shouts out, and the rest of Sedryn’s troupe leaps into action. 

Sedryn catches sight of his enemy, clad in all black, soft leather meant for long travel, a half mask and hood covering all but ice blue eyes, before the image of him shreds into mist. Only one other creature has the ability to so vanish before elvish eyes, and Sedryn cries out a warning to the others as he draws his sword and shield, “Nazgûl!” 

Clinton’s arrow clacks against the stone floor through the remaining mirage of their foe, and Melinda leaps forward with her twin swords in hand. The nazgûl reappears for the briefest instant before vanishing again to avoid her thrusts, then reappears overhead to kick Phillip aside. He lands next to Peter and Mac, and Sedryn lets loose a curse when a strike of pure shadow scatters the group, breaking their formation before it could take shape. 

“Blast it all,” Phillip cries out, dashing hoarfrost from his sleeves, as the others recover, with breath turned to icy clouds. Everywhere the nazgûl strikes, a black chill seems to follow, as if all of winter is contained within the violence.

Sedryn senses the darkness near him as it forms, strikes out with his shield, and connects with the nazgûl’s chest, then is forced to parry with his sword when his enemy flips a knife below his defenses. Sedryn has faced members of The Nine before, the doomed servants of Sauron, but none so nimble as this, or with eyes that burn so brightly. Sauron had given The Nine shape after they had none, the souls locked with rings of power enslaved to The One. After the dark lord’s destruction, the nazgûl collapsed in a heap of empty armor and shapeless robes. So how can this one still exist? 

The phantom vanishes again, slips one knife past shield until Sedryn pivots, trapping the enemy’s arm with his shield edge. The knife Sedryn recognizes, in the fashion of the Galadhrim, but the arm he does not. The metal of the nazgûl’s armor crunches and grinds against the shield, and Sedryn is taken aback as he suddenly realizes there’s no flesh there, only some device that appears as an arm, disguised in fine, silver cloth. Sedryn is forced to throw his sword up to block nazgûl’s second knife, then drives his knee up into his attacker’s ribs. Infuriatingly, the nazgûl uses his dark powers to vanish again, and Sedryn strikes nothing but the ghost of his vanished form.

“Coward!” Sedryn cries out, then catches the sudden shift of air directly behind him. It takes only an instant for the nazgûl to cut free the pouch at Sedryn’s belt with one knife, and even as Sedryn turns to dodge, bring a second knife up to attack. One of Clinton’s arrows sings past Sedryn’s ear, forcing the nazgûl to use his metal arm to break the shaft from its course and fall back a step, then throw up a wall of black ice to shield himself.

Shifting off of the defensive, Sedryn shatters the ice with a shield lunge, but the nazgûl has already changed position, bolting towards the door that the troupe blocks. He skirts around the humans like a streak of lightning trapped in a bottle, nothing but a blue-white mist leaving black-after images in his wake as he searches for an escape, now striking Phillip, then Mac, knocking Peter aside like a ragdoll, and parrying Melinda’s blades with his own long knives, blocking strikes with that wicked false arm.

The darkness this foe exudes when he vanishes is overwhelming, like the threat of some great and eternal shadow. Every time Sedryn attacks, his instincts cry out at the wrongness of it all. Approaching the nazgûl is foolish, insane, and yet Sedryn will not surrender the palantír, and is driven to put an end to this Morgul assassin. Clinton’s arrow finally finds a mark, piercing through the nazgûl’s dark cloak and pinning it to the stone. The nazgûl yanks at fabric, but it won’t tear away from the arrow, and he is forced to his knees by Melinda’s attack before using his magic to vanish once more, and then again when a second arrow zips through the air the moment he reforms.

“Clinton, watch it!” Sedryn shouts a warning as the nazgûl’s blade flies from his hand towards the archer, after being so harassed by Clinton’s arrows. Sedryn is so sure he is about to witness the first human death under his care, so sure he has so fantastically failed in his mission, that when the knife clatters harmlessly to the stones he is momentarily stunned that the murder has been averted.

Standing in front of Clinton is a woman with a cloud of red hair, the loose strings of her pale grey cowl drifting from her shoulders like a cloak of spider’s silk. Sedryn recognizes the woman they had discovered in Cirith Ungol, but her eyes have lost any semblance to a human’s, filled entirely with glowing green light. 

The _spawn of Shelob_ from Cirith Ungol, Sedryn suddenly realizes. 

The nazgûl doesn’t seem to know what to make of this new foe, and his eyes quickly dart around the recovering humans. The courtyard had been a daring place to launch such an attack, with a steep drop into the water on all three sides, and now Sedryn and his team have converged on the only door out through the palace. This servant of the enemy may have snuck into their midst unseen, but won’t escape now with all eyes on him. He attempts his misty travel, but the spider lets out a screeching hiss and vanishes with him, and just like that, the nazgûl crashes to the earth at Sedryn’s feet. A great clap of frigid air strikes the flagstones, cracking them on impact and forcing the woman back. Rather than rebounding, she dashes in front of Clinton, clearly meaning to take up a position as his protector, astonishing as it may seem.

The nazgûl is quick to recover, leaping to his feet as his hood and mask fall away to reveal a very human face. With a jolt, Sedryn realizes it’s a face he knows.

“...Bucky?” 

The nazgûl squints at the name, eyes like crackling frost meeting Sedryn’s for only an instant, before he’s forced to retreat from a sudden streak of red feathers and the screech of a raptor.

“Redwing!” Sam shouts. “Get back!” 

The nazgûl flickers momentarily out of sight, then is forced to withdraw once more from the falcon’s dangerous claws and razor sharp beak. Redwing manages to track him, diving the moment the villain reappears, even as he slips in and out of the shadows. A burst of icy wind sends Redwing wheeling back and Sam cries out again. This time the bird listens and breaks away, and in Sedryn’s mystified stupor, the nazgûl easily rushes past him and vanishes into the dark ruin of the Dome of Stars, unchallenged. 

“Captain!” Phillip shouts. “Captain, he has the seeing stone! Do we give chase?”

Sedryn can’t speak. He can’t even stand, and as he falls to his knees he places a hand over his scarred heart, feeling it struggle to beat for the first time in an age.


	7. Drúadan Forest

The Soldier seizes the moment of the elf’s distraction to retreat. 

The damned Ungoliant spawn—Shelob or something else—that protects their group changes things. When did she scuttle from her lair? He couldn’t possibly face her in addition to the five Gondorian soldiers, a pissed off bird, and one truly formidable elf.

...One truly formidable elf that had called him such an un-elvish name. 

The Soldier doesn’t recognize it—he _doesn’t_!—regardless of the pain that had flared in his chest at the sound of it. As he retraces his route over the rooftops of that cursed city, it settles stubbornly inside him, coagulates like blood in an old wound, refusing to be outrun.

“Bucky…” he whispers tentatively, feeling the shape of it on his tongue. He rests on the pitted bronze dome of a crumbling tower overlooking the square where he left his comrades and that damned wizard. He quickly spots Maria and the dwarf below, minding their mysterious cart. The Soldier needs to move, needs to escape Osgiliath, but instead his gaze is drawn back towards the bridge, towards the Dome of Stars and the courtyard and its battle he fled. It’s wrong, this name, like the taste of copper or dirt, and makes him want to spit. “ _Bucky?_ ”

“What is a ‘Bucky’?” Answers a voice behind him. The Soldier shadow steps quicker than he intends, so startled by Rhodirion’s sudden appearance. 

Plunging heedlessly into the dark shocks him down to his core, and when he forces himself back out, he does so with a great gasp, then immediately starts to fall. He had stepped out of the shadow realm several feet into thin air. He twists to right himself, cape flaring out behind him, before shadow stepping once more, touching the shadows just enough to safely draw himself down to street. He lands in a crouch with a light thud, and can only hope the elf doesn’t realize he had caught him so unawares.

“What happened?” Maria blurts out, her horse snorting in frustration at the Soldier’s sudden appearance.

Vision the Blue leans heavily on his ornate staff, eyes wide. “Did you stop them?” 

The Soldier straightens, feeling the weight of the seeing stone in his tunic. It’s smaller than he had expected, and heavier. “Yes,” he answers simply, still in Quenya. “There was an elf…” 

Rhodirion lands artfully beside him, having descended the building in a few quick steps along the crumbled sills and broken pieces of stone. “My kin?” 

“I…” the Soldier struggles to answer, suddenly unsure. The elf had worn the colors of the Ñoldor, wielded a shield clearly of elvish make, yet baring the White Tree of Gondor. His hair had been closely cropped, and a circlet of silver wings floated above furious, pale eyes. On his chest had flared a white gem, radiant with starlight. _Eärendil’s_ light, but the Soldier doesn’t know from where he’d learned the name. It had nearly blinded him every time he’d slipped into the wraith world, cutting through the darkness even in that foul place. “I know not.” 

“Lot of trouble for that little apple,” Toni grumbles, but the Soldier thinks the dwarf sounds terribly disappointed as he puts his unused mattock away.

“We may yet have a chance to cause more,” Rhodirion says, ears perked as he looks back in the direction of the bridge, over a mile away through winding city streets. “The company has marshaled the city defenses, hunting a man in black.”

“They don’t know of the rest of us yet,” Vision says. “Give me the palantír. I’ll—”

“I think not,” the Soldier answers, backing out from their small circle. “Those were knights from Minas Tirith that you sent me after. Minas Tirith, which was to hold my salvation, is now closed off to me. And for what? Your word alone? I have had enough of the machinations of wizards.”

“You mean to take the stone for yourself?” Vision says, expression unreadable. “Without knowing its true purpose?”

“I don’t need to know it’s purpose. I have no intention of using such a thing, and from my experience all those who do, wish to use them for foul purpose. I need _peace_ ,” the Soldier insists, realizing for the first time that it’s true. He needs room to think, solitude, a chance to dissect that strange elf and that much stranger name. If he cannot seek the aid of Ultron the Blue in Minas Tirith, then he shall seek answers within himself. He knows the perfect place to do this, and it’s not far. “The enemy does not yet know you, so you can finish your mission without the burden of my company.”

Maria glances at Vision, hesitating. It’s unlike her, and the Soldier isn’t sure how to react. “Surely, once we approach Minas Tirith I can explain—”

“Then this is where we part ways,” Rhodirion interrupts, putting hand to heart, gesturing goodbye. 

Maria seems to remember herself at that, and simply shakes her head. “Very well.”

“Alright then!” Toni says, apparently already finished with goodbyes. “How much longer are we going to wait around here?” 

The Soldier lifts his hood back over his tangled hair, covers his face with his half mask, and looks once more at Vision. “You won’t try to stop me?” 

“We’ll meet again,” Vision says, not answering the question at all. “As long as you have the seeing stone.”

 _Wizards!_ The Soldier thinks sharply to himself, unwilling to engage in the game so much as to answer. Instead, he draws in a breath, settling himself for what comes next. He doesn’t wish to drag a horse where he’s going, and is faster traveling the wraith world, _alone_. Ultimately, the Soldier isn’t sure why the Lady Galadriel had set him on his course towards Minas Tirith with this troublesome group. He clearly hadn’t been in need of protection from any creature still alive in Middle-earth, and instead wound up dragged into things a dead man has no business in.

The familiar cold seeps into him, slowly at first, crystalizing in his veins turning his breath to fog. This is the part he hates the most, forcing his body to succumb to the slow creep of it, immersing himself in a shadow that is all at once utter stillness and intractable chaos. The moisture in the air reacts, snow drifting around him in a spiral as the energy builds, the water in the very stones going white around his feet. Then, leaving nothing but a circle of ice behind, the Soldier plunges ahead.

* * *

When the end comes, it’s faster than Borlas had expected, and very much a shock. But then, there is likely no peaceful way to meet death during a final stand.

The king had escaped, driven away by Prince Elendur. Their final duty is to hold off the furious assault for as long as possible, allowing Isildur time to make his escape. There had been so much mud, frigid pools with ice-crusted water that would trap their legs and snatch their cloaks as they fought, horses going mad with the scent of blood mingled with the shrieks of dying men and wounded orcs. The moment Isildur vanishes, Borlas accepts that he is to die here, with honor. And yet… 

Steve. Rivendell. He has plans. _This isn’t fair._

The orcs are driven by some madness to continue, despite the number that he and the rest of their company slaughter. Borlas no longer keeps count of those he kills, knowing there will be no one left to compete with at the end of this, and still the orcs press on. They swing clubs and rusted swords, strike out wildly with pitted shields, wearing scraps of broken armor from bodies they defiled in the war. Then, appearing in the mists swirling on top of frigid pools and decaying reeds, a man on horseback with a twisted face Borlas recognizes.

“Crūz!” The man hollars, his voice raising above the din of the desperate battle as he delivers his orders. “Take your cohort North. Isildur was last spotted headed up the Anduin!”

Borlas nearly laughs when he recognizes the necromancer. Fuinur—brother of General Herumor, whom Bucky slew at Dagorlad—sits astride a miserable, broken horse, wearing armor the likeness of grey bones. Now known as Commander Pierce, this corrupted soul—not one of the vaunted Nazgûl, but a half-wight neither living nor dead—had sworn vengeance against Borlas for the murder of his kin. Apparently, Pierce had survived Sauron’s supposed demise. If Pierce still lives this half-life, then perhaps victory hadn’t been as complete as they had all thought.

Still, it gives Borlas his target. Without the whips of their master driving them, the orc forces would likely scatter in fear, or at least be hobbled by disorder to give them a chance to escape. He draws his bow, focuses through the sweat and blood that leaks into his eyes, and just before releasing his arrow, takes a wound to his arm. He barely feels it, outside of the flash of anger from missing his shot. The arrow goes wide, whizzing past Pierce’s exposed face and drawing only a thin line of blood from his pale cheek. Borlas swears, goes to draw another arrow, but his left arm doesn’t respond to lift his bow. That’s when he also spots Prince Elendur, lying dead at his own feet. 

_When did that happen?_

Borlas isn’t sure, suddenly so weary he can barely stay standing. He draws a ragged breath, curses the rain, then curses again when he sees the arm beside Elendur’s body is his own. In his confusion, he picks it up, then the ground shoots out from beneath him as he’s driven back when something huge and heavy crashes into his breastplate. 

For an instant he is weightless, floating, and strangely warm. It takes him a moment to find the spear in his chest, to feel the shaft drive into the mud when he comes down on the corpse of an orc. He tries to think of a way out, a way to keep fighting, a way to keep his promise. There’s no use. He’s dead. 

_Dead._

“Not dead yet,” Pierce promises, voice bizarrely smooth and clear coming from that ruined form. Borlas is floating again, rain or blood or both washing the tears from his eyes. He’s stuck to the earth, staring straight up into the dark, forbidding sky as Pierce’s soft voice continues to taunt him. “...But oh, you shall wish for it, _snaga_.” 

He only wishes he could see Steve’s precious stars, one last time. 

* * *

There are no major cities in Anórien, no fortresses, no strategic locations to leverage in times of war or industries to grow in times of peace. Of the few hamlets of Gondorians settled along the border, chief exports are pine lumber, sap resin, and a rare form of mushroom that grows in the shadow of the White Mountains. The native Drúedain themselves are to be avoided at all costs, having little reason to tolerate foreign men in their woods after King Elessar had recognized their sovereignty.

The Soldier remembers that much, even though he hasn’t been back to these woods in—how long? Hundreds of years. _Thousands_. 

In the wraith world, the trees loom around him like rows of ashen pillars, holding aloft a dark canopy, black as a mirror that reflects nothing but a void. The pathway through the woods is a straight tunnel at first, smudged in gold from the dappled waning sunlight, then gradually the forest nibbles on the edges with brambles and scrub and the sun altogether disappears. He doesn’t have exact memories to locate the route to the bunker, but suddenly knows when to break off the diminishing track on instinct, chasing shadows and a familiar feeling of unease.

By and large, the Drúedain own these forests, wild men of the woods who live outside of the dominion of King Elessar’s reunited kingdoms. Aside from the few Gondorian hamlets that sprung up along the King’s Road as stopovers for troops and travelers North, there are few who dare venture deeper under the pine’s long branches for fear of the wild woodsmen. Further in, however, sits a shadow that even the Drúedain dare not approach. 

The pine trees eventually give way against the rising rocks of the mountains, then abruptly end along the rim of a stoney gulch created by a small stream slicing along the cleft of the Calenhad Mountain’s sole spur, on its Western side. No matter the season or sun’s position in the sky, light doesn’t touch this pocket of darkness. The only thing that grows there are a few scrappy mosses, poisonous fungus and a dark vine that reeks of corpse-rot when broken. There arn’t even any game paths, but the Soldier travels easily over a course as if on a well paved road, somehow more at home here than when he had approached the warning statues of the Argonath, and more familiar than that terrible name that still rings in his ears.

_Bucky..._

The Soldier finally stumbles back out into the living world, utterly exhausted from the chain of shadow steps it took to travel such a distance. He gasps for breath as he collapses in a flurry of dark snow. Allowing himself to lay still for a few, sweet breaths, he exhales the frost of the wraith world. Then, legs shaking, he slowly gets to his feet and knocks the gathered slush from his sleeves. He had shadow stepped nearly forty miles North and West of Osgiliath, bypassing Minas Tirith altogether to reach the forest, far too long to stay on the other side. The wraith world is no place to plunge one’s soul into, over and over again, even for a dead man, so he resolves to walk the rest of the way. It shouldn’t be far, since the only pine trees he crosses paths with are dead ones, and already he hears the trickling of that fetid stream. 

The sun has set by the time he catches sight of the bunker entrance, carved into the side of the mountain’s spur, ugly as a puckered scar. Rank vines nearly disguise the heavy door, dark creepers that stop up the rusted hinges of the grey steel, and crackle wetly when he pushes them aside. The door itself grinds as he forces it open, protesting every inch before the Soldier cracks it just wide enough to slip through. It looks as if no one else has been here in an age, but he can’t be too sure and draws his remaining knife. 

The tunnel walls are roughly hewn, with rivulets of dirty water weeping from cracks in the stone, thick with algae. Weak light creeps in through small holes punched all the way through to the outside, but does little to brighten the corridors. The walls are nearly featureless, smooth and polished as organ meat. They are uncomfortably narrow, arched just high enough so that the Soldier doesn’t have to stoop as he cautiously steps deeper in. At each junction he encounters a sharp turn, designed not only to prevent invasion, but also to hobble attempts at escape. He’d never had the chance to see the exit tunnels, until it had been far too late for such nonsense. Eventually, he finds what he’s looking for, a spiral stair that sinks into true darkness, thick as pitch with air just as still.

It’s a rare thing to have to drift delicately into the wraith world just to see, barely skimming the surface of the other side, as one brushes the edge of a knife to test its sharpness. Bucky has been able to converse with it for so long that all he has to do is blink into it, as if settling raindrops on his lashes, and there it is. He touches it only with his eyes, leaving the rest of himself in the natural darkness of the bunker. The grey stillness of the wraith world makes even the darkest spaces visible, flattened of all color, edges traced by silver-black contrast. It’s the kind of dead light that illuminates nothing, but is a handy trick for descending underground, where all living light has been banished and the air is already cold as a crypt.

The Soldier pauses at the sound of his metal fingertips grazing the slick wall, then withdraws them slowly, wondering at the habit. It’s something he remembers, something he has done many times before, counting as he goes up and down these very stairs. He forces his metal hand to his side and makes his way to the bottom landing, where the stair spills out into a wide, open training room with a low ceiling. 

Implements of his master’s cruelty still line the walls, black with rust and decay. He had been killed here, over and over again, resurrected with putrid magic and the power of a lesser ring. That’s not what he came here looking for, so he passes through the chamber into another small hallway, this one much shorter, ending after six equally spaced iron gates.

The gates are smaller than he remembers. The cells behind them smaller still. The Soldier crouches down in front of the last one, whose cell door has withered into not much more than a few rusted sticks, and gazes down on the cold floor he spent too many years intimately acquainted with. Bleeding, yet still breathing. Suffering, yet unable to die. The Lady Galadriel had called him Borlas, son of Eurion. The Soldier knows the name is correct, yet doesn’t remember how it feels to be that Dúnedain soldier, doesn’t remember being anything other than The Winter Soldier.

_Bucky…_

Could it be another name that had been taken from him here, in this place? 

The Soldier puts his metal hand against the bars, crumbling them into dust in his fist. This cell, the final one he took up residence in, hadn’t even been locked. It didn’t need to be. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere, and the open gate had been Commander Pierce’s way of reinforcing his utter defeat. He wouldn’t have even taken his weapons unless he had been ordered to. 

“Hmm,” he mumbles out loud, just to hear his voice over the sound of old memories. The Soldier turns to the cell opposite his old home, where heavy bars block a pile of debris. At one time, this storage vault had been stacked with racks of weapons and armor, chests of gold and jewels to fund Pierce’s enterprises. With hardly any effort, he shoulders through the rotted bars. The metal shudders with resistance for only a moment before collapsing entirely into a heap, stirring up dust and splinters of decomposed wood. He crunches over the decay, kicking aside the remains of armor, rotted leather, and old coins. He plucks one off the stone floor, where it leaves an outline in the grime around it. Some of this currency might still hold value if he were to try and make something of a life for himself. It wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable to trade the palantír for coins, leaving the cursed object among a hoard of looted treasure and useless weapons.

The soldier tosses the old gold back into a pile. He doesn’t need to be haunted by the souls of those who had been killed for such plunder. The coin strikes a small, flat box, which gives up its shape with a sigh, wood disintegrating under its own weight, and the bright slice of light it releases is so pure—such a relief in this monstrous pit—that the Soldier drops to his knees with a startled cry. Among the splintered wood and dirt are elvish knives, and he is struck with the sudden memory of when he had been given— _given freely, not stolen_ —the weapons by High King Gil-galad himself. The blades are warm and white in the wraith world, a slice of purity in an otherwise corrupted realm, and when he touches the intricate filigree inlaid on their beautiful pearl handles, he falls back into the living world with a shiver. 

Leaving the wraith world plunges him back into utter darkness, but he hardly needs eyes to remember these precious blades. The knives feel natural in his hands, perfectly balanced extensions of his own arms, even the arm made out of metal. These weapons had been taken from him at the time of his capture, and then, after having been broken, displayed in front of his very cell. There they would forever remind him that he has no will to fight, no desire to hold weapons that had once been so dear. Such weapons had been unfit for a Morgul assassin, for the Winter Soldier, _Hesothar_. They had been meant for Borlas, son of Eurion, after all. 

_Bucky…_

The name is driving him mad. An itch he cannot reach, a wound he cannot staunch. It taunts him with vague shapes and sounds, but mostly with a feeling of being so utterly _wronged_. How does he know that elf? Who is this messenger of Sauron’s that could still look so fair and yet command an Ungoliant into his service? It doesn’t make sense, that a Ñoldor elf should help this new, terrible force. Who sent him on this errand with Sauron being dead? 

The palantír suddenly grows heavy in the folds of his tunic, and in the darkness he slips the pouch free. It’s small enough to fit in his hand, a perfect orb he can feel through the soft leather. Whomever is on the other end of it is the one who sent this elf to Osgiliath to seat it. The soldier’s flesh hand tingles as he pulls loose the pouch’s drawstring. Seeing stones had once been the pride of Númenor, tools to keep the North and South connected always, without relying on messengers bound to unsafe roads and treacherous rivers. He had already said he has no intention to use it, though that had been before the creeping desperation to know more wormed its way into a heart he thought had long since decayed into nothing. Surely, a quick look could do little harm to him, a creature already so wretched? He reaches out to touch the cold stone with only the tip of a metal finger, hoping it could be just enough to—

Flashes of red spark across his eyesight, bursts like fireworks hiding shapes and sounds and, _oh!_ Fury of the likes he has never known pours into him all at once, and with it a voice he has never heard. It latches into him with hooks, crawls across the metal arm to reach his flesh. Words penetrate him wholly, carrying with them power and malice and a binding force he is familiar enough with to be utterly terrified.

_You. Will. Obey._

By the time the Soldier stumbles out of the bunker, gasping for breath as he shoves his way through the gap in the metal door, he has no idea how much time has passed. It’s dark, but it’s always dark in this miserable gulch, and he nearly feels himself unravel as he tries and fails to hide in the wraith world. It’s been days since his capture, maybe even weeks. But no, it’s been years, thousands of years and yet he is still not free. Words echo through his skull that he has no strength to fight off, caught up in an avalanche of magic.

_You. Will. Obey._

The Soldier barely remembers the soothing lies of the Lady of Light, the false hope she imbedded in him before sending him adrift on the wide, wide ocean of his broken past. There is no peace for him in Middle-earth. He has no one. He is no one. The truth of it settles across his shoulders like a heavy yoke, always weighed down by a tether to this wretched bunker and his miserable past. 

The Soldier makes it to the stream, drops to his knees and plunges his head into the icy water. There isn’t much of a current, but at least the movement of the stream is enough to rush into his ears, to silence his dark thoughts along with the world around him. He waits until his chest burns before he throws his hear back, tearing away his hood and mask, as if his next gasp would be one of long sought after freedom. He sits on his heels, eyes cast upward, and in that moment sees a familiar light. A single star shines brighter than all others, blue light that carries with it a promise, like a lifeline thrown out to him in the raging torrent of an endless ocean.

“Eärendil _,_ ” he whispers. Then another name comes to him, unelvish and undignified, a name given in jest yet earned in sincerity. “ _Steve_.”

“Not quite,” comes the reply, and the lifeline is ripped from the Soldier’s grasp. 


	8. Anórien

Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad

* * *

 

Sedryn takes only a moment to recover, but in that moment he knows he’s lost any hope of catching the would-be assassin. Instead of giving futile chase to the shadow that had simply vanished the moment it reached the Dome of Stars, he runs through his other troubles, which are far more numerous than he should like.

“You,” he says, whirling around on Clinton. “Explain yourself.” 

The spider in the shape of a woman narrows her bright green eyes dangerously and stays by the human’s side as he sputters.

“Yes!” Clinton blurts out, then slowly works through the realization that he has something to answer for. “That would be me. Er, well first of all I understand this is... Not exactly _normal_. But I also don’t believe it’s all that... dangerous?”

Sedryn doesn’t take his eyes off the spider. Instead, he slowly lowers to one knee, collects his sword, shield, and whatever authority had crumbled away from him. “Are you even _attempting_ to sound confident about that?”

“Yes?”

Meanwhile, Melinda, Phillip, Mac, and Peter have all backed further away from Clinton and his unlikely companion. They move slowly, holding tight to the same line of caution as Sedryn, keeping their eyes to the spider. Samwise appears more relaxed than any of them, a curled knuckle gently brushing the feathers down Redwing’s proud breast as he watches from the opposite side of the small courtyard. Redwing himself seems entirely unbothered by the tension between the earthbound creatures surrounding him. 

“Step away, Clinton,” Sedryn cautions. They don’t have time to deal with an Ungoliant spawn, not while their palantír is getting further away, in the hands of the stars know what. “Slowly.”

The spider has the audacity to appear surprised, confused. Maybe even a little offended. She looks to Clinton.

“The thing is, Captain,” Clinton says, squaring his shoulders. “This is my fault. I think she followed us—er, _me_ —because, maybe, and it’s a big maybe, I was leaving some food out. Just in case. So, right. This is my responsibility.”

“Oh, we agree,” Melinda dryly answers. “I was wondering what happened to our last rations of lembas on the way down the stair.”

“You were _feeding_ it?” Mac cries out, putting the pieces together.

“Just until we got out of Mordor!” Clinton helplessly continues. “And then maybe towards the camp at Minas Morgul, and then along the King’s Road, but definitely _not_ in Minas Tirith, but then I guess, maybe, here... A _little_ bit.” 

“Well.” Phillip says, measured calm barely cracking. “She _did_ say she was starving…” 

Clinton points at Phillip with a look of utmost solidarity on his face, as if that explains everything, as if that justifies any of this at all. “Didn’t seem right,” he argues with a stern nod. “Leaving a lady to starve.” 

“She is no lady!” Sedryn cries out, his nerve finally fraying. 

“She hasn’t actually attacked us though, has she?” Peter reasons. “How do you even know she’s—”

“Are you all so _blind_?” Sedryn cuts him off with a shout. To him, the creature’s true nature is clear as day. The power of her being, the impact her diminutive frame makes in the world around them, the displacement of the air and the way sunlight weakens against the black shell of her armor. No human makes such a mark against the world, and that sucking darkness is characteristic of the Ungoliant spawn seen in Mirkwood. Even those monstrous spiders would be diminutive hatchlings compared to a creature that can take the appearance of a human woman. This is magic that only a creature descendent of Maiar could claim, and Ungoliant had been one so vile, it consumed the light of Telperion and Laurelin, the Silver Tree and Gold Tree that had once brought light to Valinor. Such a sin is always and forever unforgiveable to any elf, no matter how vulnerable its offspring may appear.

Sedryn lifts his shield. By Eärendil’s light, he’ll have at least one victory today. “Stand aside, Clinton.”

The spider sinks low, ready to spring like some kind of predator, but Clinton doesn’t move. Instead, he falls back a step as his hand hovers over his own shoulder, ready to snatch another arrow from his quiver.

“Do not assume I won’t go through you,” Sedryn warns. 

“Captain…” Melinda says, trailing off as if unsure how else to object. It’s clear their loyalty has already started to slip, a palpable ripple of doubt shifting through the other humans, even though no one moves.

“I know you will,” Clinton finally answers. He doesn’t seem upset, but he speaks quietly, uncharacteristically self-assured. “And I may be deaf, but not so blind as to see an enemy in one Maiar, yet seek council of another in trust and high honor, without question.”

This forces Sedryn to pause. The betrayal of Saruman the White has left a deep scar across the heart of all Middle-earth, even while Mithrandir remains a steadfast ally. To cast all Istari in the same shadow of doubt seems foolish. Though, at the same time Ultron the Blue had appeared strange, clad in all that silver armor, with no word about his wayward companion, the second Blue Wizard to travel East.

Sedryn has to shake away the creeping doubts to focus on their current problem. What does Ultron the Blue have to do with Ungoliant spawn?

“If Ultron the Blue is friend or foe, it hardly bears any weight against—” Sedryn cuts himself off as he shifts his stance immediately, and the humans follow suit. Someone is coming.

“Hold!” An elf calls out, crouched on the lower parapet of the Dome of Stars, bow in hand yet not drawn. “Hold your attack!”

“That’s _not_ going to happen,” Mac tells him, battle-axe held in both hands.

While the humans look up, Sedryn keeps his eyes down, into the open doorway leading to the ruined Dome of Stars, where he lost the Morgul assassin, all the while keeping the spider in his peripheral. He isn’t immediately concerned with the fellow elf. As of yet, none of his own people have turned to the ways of darkness. The others, however...

A human strides boldly across the wooden planks protecting the tile floors, sword and shield drawn but holding both at her side. “Soldiers of Gondor,” she calls out, breathing hard as she slows her run, but voice still steady, full of authority. “I command you to stand down!”

“Hold your ground!” Sedryn counters, watching her approach. “Don’t let the Ungoliant—”

As he expects, the spider reads the situation, and having found herself at a disadvantage scuttles over the broken edge of the courtyard towards the river below, and disappears just like that.

“—escape.”

“Maria?” Phillip says in sudden recognition, and his sword lowers.

“Hold your ground!” Sedryn shouts to remind him. This Maria person isn’t alone, and though she wears the livery of the respected Swan Knights, he doesn’t dare take the chance that this isn’t some sort of ruse.

“Now, now, young Amathion…” comes an elderly voice from the darkness, and now Sedryn is finally surprised. An old man emerges, bent heavily over his walking staff, wearing peculiar robes, something seen maybe in the far East. His beard is long, blue-white and pointed. “I think we all need to have a little conversation.”

“Great,” Melinda says, as the old man comes to rest beside the human and the elf drops from the parapets to join them. “Another wizard.” 

* * *

There has been nothing in all the long years of Sedryn’s life that prepares him for Bucky’s death. He tries to rationalize it: Bucky had been a human, not a fellow Eldar, not a soul that could possibly fuse to his, that could bind to him in a manner unique to elves. When Sedryn’s own people couple, the union outlasts life itself, both unequaled in joy and harrowing in loss when one passes to the Halls of Mandos before the other, destined only to be reunited in Valinor. Twin ships, anchored within each others’ lives, _forever_. It shouldn’t be possible between an elf and a human, and yet his soul, his fëa, has diminished in its grief without Bucky beside him. 

Lord Elrond recognizes it first, hundreds of years after the Disaster of the Gladden Fields. Time and again, Sedryn looks for news of the North, the Kingdom of Arnor, the land of Bucky’s kin, and time and again, rides out in aid of the beleaguered nation. The first of these at the death of Arnor’s tenth king, Eärendur, then again during the subsequent civil war between the king’s squabbling sons. Though Rivendell remains isolated from the violence, Lord Elrond grants Sedryn permission to ride out each time over the next several hundred years, his silent wisdom recognizing Sedryn’s need for these dangerous missions into the realms of Men. 

Bucky himself had been from Fornost, and so to Fornost Sedryn goes when it comes under attack once more, this time from the full strength of Angmar. From this last mission, Sedryn never returns to Rivendell. 

Eventually, he finds himself on a ship in the Ice-bay of Forochel with King Arvedui of Arthedain, the final vestige of a kingdom that remains after Arnor’s collapse. By this time, Sedryn’s road has been as long and winding as the complicated rise and fall of mortal kingdoms. He experiences first-hand the ascension of the Witch-king, the unparalleled savagery of the orcs, and the desperation of humans to protect the last, precious relics of their once great a realm.

King Arvedui of the besieged kingdom of Arthedain is no coward, but some things, like Arnor’s precious palantíri, must be protected, and so Sedryn helps the man escape to the far Northern lands of Lossoth, even as the lords of elves and men in the South finally plan to rally their armies to come to Arthedain’s aid. There, among the salty ice floes, Arvedui is to board a ship and sail South with the palantíri to friendlier shores.

"Do not mount on this sea-monster,” the Chief of the Lossoth had begged, superstitious of the stormy winter seas. King Arvedui is wise enough to know that the Witch-king will lay waste to the small fishing villages, not only in search of Arvedui, but for the palantíri, the seeing stones that the men of Númenor have used since the second age to defend their kingdoms.

Despite the chieftain’s warning, Arvedui boards the ship, and Sedryn with him. 

Had Sedryn been but a man, he surely would have perished along with the last of Arnor’s kings as their ship succumbs to the icy swells. He would have liked to sacrifice himself to protect this human king, except Sedryn can’t die. Not in a way that matters. Oh, if he had drowned, he’d wind up in the Halls of Mandos for a while, his fëa torn from his corporeal hröa. After some time, an eternal form would be granted him to walk the undying lands, returning to Valinor, forever. _Alone._

The thought is intolerable, so Sedryn doesn’t drown, doesn’t let his body perish beside the doomed human king, or get utterly swallowed up in the darkness like the precious palantíri as they are dragged out to sea. Instead, he falls beneath the restless waves and simply rests, letting himself sink deeper into the silent darkness beneath the violence.

When Sedryn finally emerges from this forced slumber, a century of cold silence has passed. Bucky’s homeland is nothing but a depleted ruin. What remains of the kingdoms of men, sundered and the line of kings, broken. 

Lady Galadriel offers him passage on one of the first ships back to Valinor, but Sedryn flatly refuses. He had survived only by trapping his heart in a solid casket of ice, and so sees no reason to join his kin in the undying lands. He shall remain in Middle-earth, where he belongs. She gifts him with Eärendil’s Star, and what he considers a useless warning to not forsake Light of High Hope.

Hope is no longer something Sedryn even understands. He simply endures.

* * *

“Vision. Once known as Alatar the Blue,” the old man says, dusting the ground with his cap when he sweeps into a bow. “At your service.” 

Sedryn doesn’t answer right away, instead choosing to work his way through this fresh riddle. How is it that both wizards have returned to the West, yet not together, and baring strange new names and even stranger garb? Despite it all, Sedryn still recognizes this wizard more easily than the one who has taken up a position of councilor at Minas Tirith. He starts to sense larger machinations at work, and finally lowers his sword. 

“If you are indeed one of the five wizards,” he starts slowly. “What was that thing that just attacked us?”

“Ah,” Vision starts. “It is my responsibility for sending him down this path. I feared what should happen if the master stone should be reinstated here, and he took it upon himself to stop it with violence. Though, I do not wish to tell only a partial story of a man I’ve only just met. I can tell you he has fled with the palantír. I fear we should recover it, before the enemy does.” 

“The enemy,” Sedryn bitterly repeats. “What enemy do you speak of? Because an Ungoliant spawn just escaped thanks to your arrival. I hesitate to trust what help you may be in catching a wraith.”

“The Winter Soldier travels to Anórien,” the old man says, conveniently ignoring the question of the spider, now unleashed on the barely recovering Osgiliath. “If you wish to track him, we must leave now. I can answer your questions along the way.”

“The Winter Soldier…” Phillip repeats, catching Sedryn’s attention. The human exchanges a quick look with Melinda. “Gondor’s army speaks of him as a ghost story. A Morgul assassin neither living nor dead. A silent shadow of fear among entire armies of hardened warriors.”

Samwise nods, with a look of sadness. “We’ve heard of him even in Anórien, only as a wailing spectre that haunts the forest. We thought him some cursed wight of the Drúedain...”

A ghost. A ghost with Bucky’s face. 

Sedryn shivers at the wrongness of it all, and though he knows there’s more to this story, he can’t help but put a hand to his chest as he is reminded of an old, lingering pain. He looks to the elf, recognizes him as a youth from the woodland realm and speaks to him in Sindarin. “And you?” 

“Rhodirion of Mirkwood,” he introduces himself, hand across his chest, then opens his palm outward. “I traveled South along the Anduin with this human and my dwarf friend. We came from Caras Galadhon with the blessing of Lady Galadriel herself on a mission for Gondor. Hesohtar likewise, only he came to seek the wisdom of Pallando the Blue.” Rhodirion pauses thoughtfully, as if unsure what more he should say. “They speak of an assassin, but I suspect he has recently emerged from some curse or other enslavement. He saved our lives, once at Parth Galen, and again at Henneth Annûn.” 

“He has the blessing of Lady Galadriel?” Sedryn repeats, incredulous. He can’t imagine any Morgul creature being released freely from Lothlórien, but if this man had been cursed by Shadow, perhaps… with the destruction of Sauron… Sedryn thinks back to the Gladden Fields, to the arm he’d discovered under moonlight, an arm, but never a body to go with it…

But no, Sedryn sharply reminds himself, shaking thoughts out of his head that could have lead him down path of dark disappointment once more. The matter of true importance is the palantír, and the fact that this mystery wraith has stolen it. 

Sedryn switches back to Westron, looking to the wizard. “Do you know where he is headed?”

“The Drúadan Forest,” Vision says, and Samwise’s eyebrows go up, just a little. “He has traveled beyond my sight, in a place of impenetrable darkness, but as long as he carries the palantír, I can follow. Unfortunately, so can others. This is why we come to you now, to better understand if you are friend or foe. I would not think the folk of the Ñoldor could be doing the bidding of darkness by choice.” 

“The Drúadan Forest is dangerous, even more so for foreigners,” Samwise interjects. “The Drúedain are fiercely defensive of their territory, and would not take kindly to Gondor soldiers passing through, even to chase some common enemy. They tolerate some of the villagers along only certain paths to the White Hills.”

Sedryn could chew rocks, but he quickly thinks of a solution. “Samwise—”

“Sam,” the herald corrects, and his falcon Redwing makes a sound of familiar acknowledgement, agreeing with him that his shortened name is for the better. 

“Sam, would you do us the honor of acting as our guide through your home country?” Sedryn asks, and the human quickly nods.

“Happy to.” 

Sedryn turns to the other members of his own pathfinder troupe, still balancing on the edge of caution after the encounter with the spider. He has no time to repair whatever trust has been broken, and doesn’t even know if he cares to. “The rest of you, return to Minas Tirith to report on the situation. Except Clinton,” he sharply adds, and the human flinches. “You’ll come with us. I won’t have you drawing that creature to our capitol if it can be helped.”

That’s as good as he can do for now. Hopefully, he can lure the spider out himself without worrying about the human’s childish emotions when he destroys her.

“My own task sends me to Minas Tirith with the knight and our remaining ally,” Rhodirion tells him, as they all make their way through the Dome of Stars together. “But I will say this: Hesohtar carries darkness within him but isn’t darkness itself. I don’t believe he’s taken the seeing stone for ill purpose.”

“Ill purpose or no,” Sedryn says, “I need answers.”

Before long, the other elf says his goodbyes, departing with the Swan Knight named Maria, apparently on some vital errand with a dwarf to Minas Tirith. Vision and Sam hurry to fetch their own horses, while Sedryn recovers Turma without a word of goodbye to the others. He notes that Clinton has apparently shaken his nervous habit of looking over his shoulder. Sedryn takes it as a sign that the man is at least no longer sneaking morsels from his wayfare supply. Sedryn, Clinton, Sam with Redwing, and the wizard meet at Osgiliath’s Northern gate, ready to follow the little-used road North-West into Anórien.

The sun is already low in the sky by the time they leave the city proper, winding slowly through the rubble left of the outer defenses, pale orange scraps of cloth staked before the stones marked for new construction. Sedryn himself is mostly silent, caught up in dusty memories, still sharp despite their age.

Once they reach the borders of the Anórien, Sedryn still doesn’t know what to think about the Winter Soldier, despite having agonized over the riddle in silence on the long ride from Osgiliath. Sedryn has had little to do but think, casting light from Eärendil’s Star for the horses as darkness settles in around them.

True to their word, Vision had acted as a compass, and Sam an experienced guide along paths that lead them through the small Gondorian hamlets. To Sedryn, it feels unnaturally still, late in the evening and late in the year, with few lights in village windows and fewer folk outside. The presence of these hamlets, their cold metal works, livestock, and refuse, frightens away the local birds and blooms, silences the trees, and keeps a lively wood sullen and resentful. It’s hard to believe that humans have inherited this realm. Sedryn has to quell the nagging voice within him that urges him towards the sea, leaving the humans behind to ruin it as they will.

A locating cry sounds overhead, and through the sparse branches comes the dart of Sam’s falcon. Even in the dark, Redwing has no trouble locating them after his short flight to Minas Tirith, and drawn to Sedryn’s light, pulls up first on the elf’s shoulder. 

In Sindarin, Sedryn quietly tells him, “Your work is so swift and precise, like an arrow. It’s no wonder your human companion speaks so highly of you.” The bird accepts the corner of lembas bread that Sedryn presents him, then drops from Sedryn’s shoulder to alight on Sam’s with a happy chirp. Redwing presents his talons, proudly offering the messenger tube strapped to his ankle.

“The rest of your party has arrived safely in Minas Tirith,” Sam reports from the unfurled scroll. “The Swan Knight and her company as well. Ultron the Blue bids you to return to Minas Tirith at once.”

“Ultron the Blue can bid all he wants,” Sedryn answers, with not an undue amount of scorn. “I’m merely a _guest_ in the house of King Elessar, after all.”

They leave the signs of Gondor settlements behind, and the woods quickly begin to change. It grows more wild, livelier, still with evidence of Men’s presence in the winding road through the trees, but here nature seems to breathe more easily. It also seems to cast a gaze on their group, not wholly welcome to visitors. Turma sneezes, and Sedryn catches sight of the other horses’ flattened-ear unease as the stones in the road end, steel shod hooves thudding dully against soft earth and dry moss.

Then they see the statues. Five of them line the track, some in the image of Rohirrim, horse hair plumes blowing in a non-existent breeze. Some are merely bewildered looking, as if they’d stood in disbelief as an artist carved their likeness.

Vision holds up his staff and it flares for a brief moment, nothing more than a flicker, before he nods in approval. Sam speaks softly, sensitive to the change in scenery. “We will soon have to ask the Drúedain permission to pass through their borders. If they find our reason lacking, they may turn us away.”

“Or to stone,” Sedryn adds. 

Clinton had been left to sulk at the end of their small convoy, and looks up suddenly at the words, then back down to the statue of a dog, hackles risen where it crouches in the tall grass. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“The Drúin are masters of their own, strange magic,” Sedryn explains, using the more common Sindarin name of the wild men. He speaks as loudly as he dares, turning so that Clinton can read his lips if he must. “They are said to have been part of Númenor, at one point. Good people with their own ways. Although cruelly, my people consider them...unlovely.” 

“Good people, though suspicious, isolated,” Sam explains further. “Not entirely unreasonable. It helps that we have no Rohirrim with us. Drúin have no love for the horse lords, who once hunted their people for sport.” 

Turma stops abruptly, and Sedryn catches sight of something in the trees. “Hold,” he commands. 

“This is strange,” Sam mutters under his breath. “Normally, their border wardens approach boldly.” 

“There’s something fel here…” Vision cautions, and Sam raises his voice. 

“Hail masters of the wood! I am Samwise, son of Willem, from Hardwallow on your Eastern border. We humbly request passage through your lands, in search of a dangerous stranger who stole a relic of Gondor.” 

Complete silence follows Sam’s eloquent greeting. Sedryn turns Turma around, and spots a long figure through the trees. The man stands slumped against a thick, old trunk, sharp onyx eyes set deep under a proud, heavy brow. The Drúin’s skin is the color of polished maple, his shape hale and strong, but something is dreadfully wrong with the way he stays propped up against the tree, an unseeing sentinel giving no indication of noticing their group. The horses shiver, tails lashing against their hindquarters as if trying to scour their twitching flanks of pests. Sedryn listens to the gentle groan of the trees, their distrust palpable, and suddenly becomes aware that it isn’t their group they fear. 

“Be on your guard,” Sedryn warns, and pulls his sword free. “The trees speak of dead things, walking among them!” 

Just then the lone Drúin jerks forward on stiff limbs, unblinking as his body tears through the woods in a perfectly straight line towards the track. Turma leaps forward as the other horses rear back, pounding at the wight ferociously with her hooves. The Drúin’s arm raises up with a limp wrist, holding a dagger that reeks of poison, and wildly flails it at the horse. She grunts in the effort to dodge, and Sedryn leans a sweeping cut towards the man’s thick neck. His arm twist unnaturally across his body, blocking the sword with his knife before leaping back. His eyes still glitter with that terrible, unblinking energy, face blank and unmoving as his dagger raises once more to strike. 

Three purple fletched arrows strike him in the chest, one after the other, forcing the Drúin back two steps. He topples over the statue of the dog, and is still, Clinton’s arrows piercing him through and through. 

Sam finally reins in his terrified horse, breathing hard. “Of all the unholy—” 

“It’s not over,” Sedryn bites off. 

The unmistakable sound of bones cracking beneath skin comes from the Drúin’s body as it lifts once more to stand on loose feet. It drags itself over the dog’s stone form, arm once again brandishing the dagger despite Clinton’s arrows still stuck in his chest. 

Sedryn wheels Turma around, and with a single stroke of his sword, strikes the man’s head from his shoulders. A sound tears from the gaping hole in the stump of the Drúin’s neck, a wild, mournful wail, like lightning rending a tree in half. The hollow body finally drops to its knees, but its arm continues a grotesque dance with the poisoned dagger, wholly dedicated to its mission even as the body of its blind host fails.

Redwing gives a great warning _scree!_ And all around them, Drúin rise from the bushes and bramble. At least a dozen in total, all with the same dark eyes, glittering with sightless seeing. Sedryn calls upon Eärendil’s Star in earnest, and a shield of pure white light encircles the four riders, cracking with energy as the Drúin fling themselves against it. 

“They cannot pass,” Sedryn tells the others, one hand clasped against the jewel in his breastplate. “The dead cannot stand in Eärendil’s light.” 

Clinton draws his bow, and taking a lesson from Sedryn’s tactic, strikes the wights in the head, between their black eyes. One after the other, they succumb to the archer’s perfect aim, collapsing the moment their skulls are pierced, slumped against the dome and falling back into the greenery.

“Captain!” Sam shouts in warning. “The assassin!”

The light wavers when Sedryn catches sight of Hesohtar. The Morgul assassin strides boldly down the middle of the track, emerging from the fringe of darkness, not unlike a great hunting cat. His eyes are piercing blue, unnaturally luminescent in the dark of the forest as he exhales a steady cloud of frost. He’s touching the shadow of the wraith world, bending it to his corrupted will. Hesohtar’s face is hidden once more, the half mask and hood leaving nothing but those terrible eyes looking out, locked with Sedryn’s own. This visage of the Winter Soldier in his element steals away something in the core of Sedryn’s being, his courage or his faith. In his inexplicable moment of doubt, Sedryn loses his connection to Eärendil’s Star, and the barrier of light bursts with a snap, vanishing instantly like a soap bubble pierced with dry grass.

Sedryn catches the sound of a bowstring and leans hard to the right as Clinton’s arrow sings past his ear. Hesohtar strikes it aside with a long knife, and lurches forward, unnaturally stiff for as swiftly as he travels.

“Focus on the wights,” Sedryn orders, and leaps over Turma’s head, sword and shield drawn. Redwing takes the eyes out of one wight to Sedryn’s left, as another on his right falls with Clinton’s arrow piercing his skull. Sedryn sprints over these bodies, and swings his sword into thin air as Hesohtar vanishes. Sedryn chases the shadow, blocking a deadly blow with his shield before pivoting just in time for his sword to clash with Hesohtar’s knife. Hesohtar moves differently than he had in their last fight, that fluid form replaced with jerky thrusts and straight-armed strikes, as if he is now headless of his own ability to follow through on such attacks. He’s faster, but more predictable, dropping in and out of the wraith world to evade Sedryn, but not to counter. 

Behind him, Vision, Clinton and Sam fight desperately against the tide of undead, barely avoiding the slashing strikes of poisoned weapons. The puppets fall quickly, but more come on, women and children among them, as if a blight of undeath had swept through an entire village and rose it to ill purpose.

“Hold them back,” Vision urges, knocking one woman aside with his staff before lifting it above his head. Sedryn tries to shove Hesohtar back with his shield, but the assassin is too strong and drops to his knees, driving one long knife into Sedryn’s thigh. It pierces his armor, sparks flying from the keen blade as it cuts through steel. Sedryn screams from the shock of pain. He blocks Hesohtar’s second strike with his shield, wrenches the knife free with a gush of fresh blood, then gasps when light engulfs the clearing, wuffing over them like plumes of cold fire. Hesohtar screams, and Sedryn staggers around to see the Drúin collapsing, one after the other. The color drains from their skin as they sprout mortal wounds where they’d had none, as if their bodies finally remember that they are dead. 

Heohtar himself throws his head back, gagging as a ribbon of blood erupts from his chest. His left arm crumbles then, the metal flaking away in clumps like rotten iron. The silvery fabric disguising the false limb flutters to the ground, and on the false shoulder burns the red, lidless eye of Sauron. It flares with malice, resisting the cleansing spell for several long, terrifying seconds, before it too succumbs and starts breaking apart. Even as he screams, Hesohtar reaches up with his remaining hand, as if trying to touch the stars. He gulps in air only to breathe out a geyser of blood, and then, as the final gasps of life leave his chest, a silvery white imprint of him, wisp-thin as if made from smoke, slowly lifts from his flesh. The imprint struggles against this pull, forcing the body it came from to jerk erratically, and Sedryn is reminded of seeing bones pulled through a wriggling fish.

“Bucky…” The name slips past Sedryn’s lips before he knows it. Dressed in the livery of Fornost, hair cropped closely for foot soldier’s duties, the image of Sedryn’s former lover turns in midair trailing fine threads of glittering moonlight as he’s pulled and pulled. Meanwhile, his body—that of Hesohtar’s as Sedryn had clashed with—has gone limp. It seems lifeless save for the few, macabre twitches with every thread that goes black and crisps away, each one pulling with it a small shriek that reaches Sedryn’s keen ears. The sound is unmistakable, a wail of outage from across the barrier between their world and the wraith world. The shriek of the Nazgûl, threading into the body that once belonged to Bucky as Bucky’s soul is torn away.

Sedryn spins back to the wizard, still driving the cleansing fire on with his staff. If the wizard continues, Bucky— _Sedryn’s Bucky_ —will be lost forever. He’ll die, everything good and kind and sarcastic and curious will _die_! Leaving nothing but the wraith behind. 

“Stop!” Sedryn cries, and looks back at the suffering soldier. “You must stop!”

“This will not work twice,” Vision warns him loudly over the roaring of energy surrounding them. “If I stop now, there will be no killing him!” 

Sedryn feels the madness leap out from somewhere cold and frozen inside him. Madness borne from grief and helpless fury, the kind one only feels when the other half of their own heart and soul is being stolen away by the unfairness of this miserable mortal world. He rounds on Vision with his sword drawn. “End the spell, wizard!” He spits. “Or I’ll end you!”

Vision stares back for only a moment, not in defiance, but careful consideration. He lowers his gleaming staff and the light is extinguished like a candle flame snuffed out by a gale. 

Bucky’s gaussian soul snaps back into his body, such as it is. It strikes the cold ground with a heavy thud. He thrashes on his side, struggling to gain control with his one remaining arm, before drawing in a huge gasp of air. He begins to weakly crawl away from Sedryn, dragging himself across the grass as his ragged breath turns into desperate cries. 

“I will not obey you,” he says in Quenya, grabbing a huge fistful of grass, clinging to it like a lifeline as he tries to escape. “I will never again be slave to the darkness.” 

“Bucky…” Sedryn says, his voice high and thin, also desperate, clinging to a lifeline of his own. Bucky flinches as if struck. He grabs another fistful of dirt and grass, putting another few inches of space between them.

Sedryn is so focused on the struggling—what? Human? Wraith? Ghost?—that he doesn’t notice the new presence in their midst until it’s too late.

Smoldering, cruel laughter crackles through the air, wheezing like a bellows. “Oh my, oh my…” comes a voice like melting wax. Sedryn stumbles back a step, unsure where it’s coming from. The trees themselves hiss and whisper, groaning to lean away from whatever continues to speak. “My toy soldier seems to have broken, yet again.”

“Who are you?” Sedryn demands. “Show yourself!” 

Another laugh of dark amusement, and finally a man steps out of the shadows. No, not out, it’s as if the shadows themselves slip off his shoulders and pool about his feet like heavy velvet, draped over the bodies of the fallen Drúin. This man’s face is a ruin of human flesh, swollen like rotted fruit and split down to the pink muscle beneath every crease. Sedryn doesn’t recognize that face, but does recognize the armor, dull grey metal the shape of bones, and the spear a long, wicked point. He hasn’t seen this horror since the War of the Last Alliance.

“Fuinur!” Sedryn hisses, realizing this must be the necromancer that the humans now call _Pierce_. “Release him, servant of Sauron!”

“Servant, no more,” Pierce tells him with a gentle sigh, as if speaking it aloud relaxes him. “Freed from the yoke of a Dark Lord too weak to master his own trinkets.”

Vision—supposedly a member of the wise Istari—chuckles. “You? A mere human, compare yourself to a Maiar?”

The barb twists Pierce’s horrible face into an even more putrid mask, anger slicing open new cracks as fluid drips from sharp, blackened teeth. Instead of rising to Vision’s taunt, he simply answers, “Your brother says, hello.” 

The speed of Pierce’s attack knocks Sedryn off his feet. He somersaults, recovering in midair, just in time to see the wizard lift his staff in defense. The stone in its golden eye flares red once more, engulfing both Vision and Pierce in a cloud of cleansing fire. Pierce laughs in his face when he drives his spear through the heart of Vision’s horse. It dies with a swift grunt of amazement, the spell shattering as it collapses in on itself when Vision is thrown to the ground. He recovers quickly, blocks Pierce’s spear thrusts once, twice, and a third time before his staff is knocked aside. Sedryn staggers, unable to find his feet for the pain flaring hotly in his thigh from the knife wound. 

Arrows snap like twigs against Pierce’s armored back, and he tosses the shafts aside that get caught in his black cape. “You come at me with arrows?” He says, throwing the wizard aside. “You come at me with old spells and swords? With _beasts_?” 

Redwing pulls up short finding no flaw in Pierce’s armor to exploit, no break in the heavy grey steel for his raking talons or sharp beak. 

“You think I am so foolish to fall to elvish blades and lesser humans?” Pierce takes his time, closing the space between himself and the archer, unbothered by the rest of his arrows. 

“Worth a shot,” Clinton mumbles with a resigned shrug. 

“No!” Sedryn cries out. Vision has hauled himself to his feet and is murmuring over the crown of his staff once more, but no spell could save the human in time. “Clinton, run!” 

“Yes,” Pierce hisses, kicking one of the Drúin children aside. “Do make a sport of it, like I made of these animals in ape skins.”

Sedryn launches his sword across the track like a spear itself. The elvish blade flies true, and drives straight through Pierce’s back, the tip pushing out of his chest like a fresh spring shoot. For a second, it’s as if all the sound at the crossroads has simply stopped. Pierce looks down at the blade in surprise, the others all freeze, shocked by the abrupt change of fortune. 

Then Pierce clucks his tongue, as if merely annoyed. He reaches behind his back and hauls the sword out of his own body. “Very nice,” he says, admiring the elvish workmanship, the golden inscription flowing down the blade, and silver wrapped handle. He runs his thumb over the glittering star on the sword’s pommel. “I think I’ll add it to my collection.” 

Clinton has regrouped with Sam and Vision, who now stands beside his dead horse with a determined look in his eye. “You will not have them, Necromancer,” he says, and swings his staff in front of him. From its arc leaps a streak of pure white light that instantly floods the wood. Sedryn is blinded by the lightning, deafened momentarily by the thunderclap that throws him back down to his knees. Air blasts past him in a great roar of wind, dragging at his cape, throwing twigs and loose soil against his broad back. The lightning is crushed into a tiny, sparking ball between Pierce’s hands, leaping furiously out at him, sparking against his armor. 

“Cute,” he mutters, and throws it aside to split a great, old pine in half down the center. When he turns back to Clinton, his half-amused smile collapses. In the blinding flash, the spider had managed to slip between him and his prey. Her eyes glow wickedly in the darkness, her smile frightfully flat beneath her green stare. 

“...Cute,” she repeats, making a mockery of Pierce’s words before she springs. Sedryn blinks hard, spots still in his eyes from the wizard’s lightning and still a little unsure of what he sees. Pierce hollers savagely when the spider latches onto his neck, spins away from the humans as he fights too many arms and legs. He strikes the spider with his spear, but the metal point goes uselessly skittering off her glossy black armor. 

Pierce finally lets loose a shout and unthinkably, the spider snatches up his mouth with her own. He thrashes wildly then, churning up earth and leaves from the ground, then trips over one of his fallen puppets and collapses beneath the spider’s weight. She draws away from him, dragging something long and glittering from down the man’s throat. She crouches on all those black limbs, drawing out that horrible shadow, and Pierce’s back arches up violently before his chest caves in. Soon his arms crumple against his own body, his legs twist grotesquely, as if crushed in a huge fist, his armor screeching and pulling as bones snap and skin tears itself apart. Still, the spider continues her feast until Pierce’s helm caves in around his skull and the screaming suddenly stops. She smacks her lips, exhaling a fine mist of shadow. She has consumed Pierce’s soul, entirely. 

The spider gives a contented hum, and sits back, her form once again appearing with a human number of arms and legs, eyes blinking in the dim light still cast by Eärendil’s Star. Her hair is glossy and clean, bright red ringlets falling around skin the color of snow. She shivers, drawing her stringy cowl around her shoulders as the others gawk. She notices the scrutiny and smiles at Clinton, this time with no wicked fangs. 

“I was so very hungry,” she says, by way of explanation. “And he was so delicious.” 

Vision prods at the empty helmet with the butt end of his staff. “I really did spend too much time in the East,” he mutters darkly. “Nearly being undone by a mere human conjurer.” 

“No,” comes a new voice, and Sedryn whirls around to see Hesohtar standing there, leaning heavily against an unfortunate statue. The terrible blue light has gone from his eyes, though he avoids Sedryn’s gaze completely when he staggers towards Vision. “Pierce wasn’t acting alone. There was another voice, stronger than his, granting him power. I’m certain it has something to do with wherever this came from,” he adds, presenting Sedryn’s leather pouch. 

It bulges with what Sedryn knows to be the palantír given to him by Ultron the Blue.


	9. Hardwallow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad," in Quenya, means "Hear my voice, come back to the light."  
> "Hiro îth ab 'wanath," in Sindarin means "May they find peace after death."

“Eärendil _,_ ” the Soldier whispers. “ _Steve_.”

“Not quite.”

The Soldier freezes, water still dripping from his long hair into his wide open eyes. The voice is instantly familiar, deceptively soft. The Soldier knows and hates the necromancer, as he knows and hates himself. It’s pure darkness, swallowing the soldier whole, snuffing out the stars themselves as he drowns in it.

Before he has time to react, to fight back, to even shout Pierce’s name, violence goes through him and almost immediately takes root, as if it belongs there. It claws between his skin and his soul, leaving channels of fire in its wake. He is being restrung by the puppet master, fresh threads hooking into his muscles, his bones. They work their way through his body until his will is trapped behind an impenetrable curtain of woven steel, where he cannot reach it.

In that darkness, all the Soldier can recall is his last free thought, standing beside Prince Elendur, drawing his bow to strike down the necromancer Fuinur. A wish to see Steve’s precious stars, one last time. Instead, the Soldier’s arm is taken off by an orc axe, and his shot goes wide. It merely grazes the enemy, who laughs the moment he meets the Soldier’s gaze. Fuinur—now known as Commander Pierce—had already sworn an oath of vengeance against the Soldier for the death of his brother, whom the Soldier had slain at Dagorlad.

It seems the two had been destined to meet up here, at the end. Pierce hurtles his spear towards the Soldier and it strikes him in the middle of his chest, like a battering ram. He’s driven backward, all the wind going out of his body at once. When he tries to take in a breath, only shadow makes it down his throat, choking him, filling him up from the inside until it starts to wriggle out from under his straining flesh. He thrashes, and with wide open eyes sees nothing but the terrible darkness of the wraith world all around him. The colorless smudges of trees and orcs and dying men all curl inward, as if he’s caught in a giant’s palm, great claws caging him in.

The Soldier has shadow stepped so blithely through the other side, flickering in only long enough to defeat his own world. He draws out the wraith’s cold power, casting icy torrents against his enemies. It had never noticed him, never tried to assert itself, or steal back the strength he took. Now, it recognizes his trespassing. Now, it wants penance. The shadow filling him up starts to shriek through his veins as it shreds what’s left of his very soul. It darts through the harrowed trenches left by Pierce’s control, finding every old wound, licking up and down the shaft that protrudes through Bucky’s chest and out of his back. Bucky wants to shut his eyes, and wants to open them, not at all sure if he’s really seeing Steve’s stars breaking through the darkness above, even as he loses himself.

Then the Soldier gasps.

A cleansing fire engulfs him, burns him through and through, undoing the puppetmaster’s strings, and through the shock and pain of unraveling control, the Soldier realizes he has returned. He is once again thousands of years removed from the moment that spear pierced his breast, an entire age past the moment he had been pinned to the soft earth of the Gladden Fields. He can even see Steve’s stars this time, feel their cool light against his cheeks as he fights off what remains of the invasion under his flesh.

The spell of fire burns on, and the shadows recede, the wraith world’s terrible call fading into a muttered howl. The Soldier’s head clears just long enough for him to claw his way fully into that present, to feel the flesh of his own, ragged body as his soul once again forces itself home, tearing away from the hooks of Pierce’s influence, silencing the winter demons. The Soldier’s fingers dig into cool earth as the fire subsides, and inch by inch he scrapes himself clean of the necromancer’s control.

He is free. Free to live on his own terms. Free to die.

“I will not obey you,” he vows, strength gathering within him once more, if not to move his legs then at least to hold his conviction. He forces himself forward, defying his old master with every struggling breath that rattles through his chest. Pierce will have to kill him now, will have to finally end it. He would die a mortal death, the shadows will never claim him. “I will never again be slave to the darkness!”

Then comes a new voice, warm and familiar as his own blood. “Bucky…”

Pierce says something again, but it only reaches the Soldier’s ears as muttered nonsense, holding no power over him.

_Still alive, still free._

Where is he? Certainly no longer beside the black waters of the stream that feeds the seeping, hidden bunker. Someone is near him, shouting a warning.

“Clinton, run!”

 _Who is Clinton?_ Some strength returns to the Soldiers’s limbs, and he finally manages to open his eyes. His left arm is numb—not numb, _missing_ —and he finds himself at the Drúadan crossroads, outside of the village of Hardwallow. He recognizes it, but doesn’t know how he came to be here.

“Yes,” comes Pierce’s hateful voice. “Do make a sport of it, like I made of these animals in ape skins.” He gruesomely kicks aside an ashen corpse.

Flashes of memory appear before the Soldier’s eyes. Drúedain villagers, slaughtered all around him, bled dry for Pierce to perform his macabre ritual. The Soldier had been there, had witnessed it, had even been Pierce’s tool against them. One last sin he had been forced into, and the helpless fury of it rises new strength within him. The necromancer had slaughtered an entire village to create a soulless troupe of deadly puppets just to use in this one ambush and then discard.

The Soldier squeezes his eyes shut as the memory shreds like smoke in the wind, leaving nothing but the echoes of screams behind.

Pierce isn’t paying the Soldier any attention, instead mocking a mounted archer, one of the humans from the courtyard outside of the Dome of Stars. The Anórien herald is also there, his falcon posed dangerously on his shoulder, ready to take flight. Then, the Soldier sees the strange Ñoldor elf. The strange Ñoldor elf, who had called him _Bucky_. He has a terrible wound in his thigh, but lunges forward and recklessly launches his sword across the road, driving it through Pierce’s chest.

“Idiot,” the Soldier rasps to himself, and is grateful that his voice still works. Pierce cannot be killed by weapons alone, and now the elf has succeeded only in disarming himself. With a grotesque twist of his spine, the necromancer yanks the sword free. Luckily, the distraction had been enough for the wizard to complete his spell and the entire wood vanishes in a blink, washed out by white, hot lightning. It crackles across the Soldier’s scalp, and when it fades, he sees Pierce is predictably unharmed.

What he hadn’t predicted was the spider to once again make herself known, and this time she isn’t interested in the Soldier. It takes only a few seconds, but she successfully overcomes Pierce and somehow… _eats_ him. Consumes his soul as if it were a thick soup, straight out of his own mouth. It’s nauseating to behold.

The moment the last, glittering thread draws from Pierce’s ruined form, the Soldier feels a surge of warmth, a comforting pressure under his own skin. It settles around him like a heavy blanket, and he blinks a few times to make sure it isn’t only in his imagination. He had thought he had been free before, but something about Pierce still walking Middle-earth had kept him always struggling against a feeling of displacement, weightlessness. He slowly picks himself up, letting that sense of presence settle around him, feet firmly planted on the hard packed ground. The others remain frozen in place, still stunned by the final moments of Pierce’s horrifying death.

“I was so very hungry,” the Ungoliant explains, with a small smile at the archer. If the Soldier didn’t know better, he would have thought she was being somewhat bashful. “And he was so delicious.”

Pierce’s empty helmet rolls away from the end of the wizard’s staff, not much more than crumpled metal. The elf recovers his sword.

“I really did spend too much time in the East,” Vision laments. “Nearly being undone by a mere human conjurer.”

“No,” the Soldier tells him, finally finding words in Westron. The Ñoldor startles around, but the Soldier isn’t ready to face him. Instead, the Soldier looks to Vision, since he knows the wizard better than the others, with something like trust. “Pierce wasn’t acting alone. There was another voice, stronger than his, granting him power.”

Then the Soldier shows Vision the elf’s pilfered belt pouch, the seeing stone visibly bulging against the thin leather. “I’m certain it has something to do with wherever this came from.”

The wizard looks glum as he leans heavily on his staff, appearing both exhausted and disheartened in equal measure. “It’s as I feared, then.”

“Pallando the Blue gave me the palantír,” the Ñoldor elf explains, glancing away from the Soldier as if equally afraid to meet his gaze. “ _Ultron_. You mean to tell me he’s… a part of this?”

The archer gives a thoughtful hum, though doesn’t sound all that surprised.

“You must make haste back to the capital,” Vision says, then turns sharply to the Soldier, staring him right in the eye. “ _All_ of you. And give me that wretched thing.”

The Soldier draws the pouch away, protecting it in the curve of his own body. He may have some lingering trust for this wizard, but he needs more than a stern order to hand over such an important piece of the puzzle without question.

Vision shakes his head. “How do you suppose that fallen Númenórean found you? Ultron must have created that palantír as a master stone. With it, he sees into the hearts and minds of those who touch it. Even now, he is able to track it with his own powers. I must draw his eye away from your quest, or else he’ll set all of Gondor against you.”

“A rogue wizard is a dangerous enemy,” the herald says. The others nod in grim agreement, though the Soldier feels like the human is only stating the obvious.

“He can follow me to the heart of the Drúadan Forest instead.” Vision glances down at the wretched fate of the villagers at their feet. “I’ll seek out their kin, with news of the necromancer’s defeat.”

A surge of guilt rushes down the Soldier’s spine and turns him into a coward. He doesn’t admit out loud what role he had in Pierce’s gruesome recruitment of the locals. Instead, he hands over the leather pouch, happy enough to be done with it.

“ _Hiro îth ab 'wanath…_ ” The elf quietly prays, eyes lowered in mourning. When he finishes, he looks depleted, as if he’s lost a hundred of his closest kin. “We shouldn’t just leave them here.”

“They have their own ways of handling their dead,” the herald warns. “It would be more gracious to leave them untouched.”

“Hungry?” the Ungoliant whispers, her tone offering a suggested course of action that could hide such evidence as she leans in closer to the archer.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” the elf grumbles, before he calls his mount. The elvish horse trots unhappily over a small, crumpled body, taking care not to step on the limp form, and the elf staggers to her side.

“You’re injured,” the Soldier notices, and watches as the elf’s shoulders jump up nearly to his ears in surprise. His hair is short, closely cropped with a winged circlet resting on his brow. It strikes the Soldier as very odd. Elves don’t wear their hair short. _Ever_.

“I’ll live,” the elf answers, but stops with one hand on the horse’s saddle. In the other, he holds a long knife—one of the matching set that the Soldier had recovered from the necromancer’s lair. He turns and holds it out to the Soldier, thankfully avoiding his gaze.

The Soldier closes the space between them, quickly retrieving it. “How did—” he stops short, and glances back down at the wound on the elf’s thigh that he now realizes came from his own hand. “My apologies.”

The elf glides easily up to his saddle, ever graceful, and nods once to accept the apology without another word. He quickly turns his horse away. “We’ll spend the night in Hardwallow and make for Minas Tirith at first light. I don’t know what to do with your spider,” he tells the archer. “For now it seems she is an ally. Keep an eye on her.”

The archer must be far too trusting, because almost the moment they set to the road he turns his back to her. Without horses, the Soldier and the spider manage to fall in step together as they walk back to the village, and at first seem contented to say nothing to each other. The herald leads their column, followed by the archer, then the elf with his gleaming breastplate, providing enough light to navigate for those on horseback and on foot. If it weren’t for that magical, soft light, the road would be pitch dark.

At first, nothing living stirs around them, but as they put distance between themselves and that doomed crossroads, crickets start to sing in the brush, small animals dashing away at the noise of travelers passing through. It’s the music of a living wood, peaceful in its own sort of way. Even though his left arm is now missing entirely, the flesh no longer burns around the scars where it joined his body. Despite being somewhat lopsided now, the Soldier seems to have no more pain for the first time he can remember.

The Soldier doesn’t want to break that peace with the sound of his own voice, but can’t help it once he notices the spider’s eyes on him. “What is it? Why do you stare?”

“You have died once before.”

Her words are so blunt that the Soldier misses a step. He recovers quickly enough that he hopes the elf won’t turn back in alarm, and tries his best to match her effortless pace. Foolish to be so self conscious, and any elf could hear the softest spoken words from such a small distance, but the Soldier still feels cautious about this elf. He would be happy to be ignored for the rest of their journey.

“I have,” he answers honestly. He doesn’t mention the number of times he has suffered at the hands of Commander Pierce, who had delighted in killing him over and over again, before a mission or after, just to keep his soul bound to his broken body and mind empty. “What of it?”

“So have I,” she says.

“Do you mean to say we are something alike?”

The spider laughs. She has too many teeth, a hint of how far she truly is from human. “We are nothing alike,” she says. “When I die, I forget myself, who I have been, and who I will be, but always come back. That much I know for certain. True mortality shall always elude me.”

“Funny,” the Soldier says, not finding anything funny about it. “I’m starting to feel the same way.” He wants to shiver when he recalls the wraith world’s terrifying greed for him, but can’t manage it. Even feeling something so human as a chill seems beyond him now. There is a change since he shucked the yoke of Pierce’s control, since his arm was destroyed in the wizard’s spell. It’s as if he has been doused in something permanent as death, a black stain he will carry forever like a hunter’s mark.

“Now you are the one who finds common ground between us,” she tells him, giving him a more subtle smile this time. There’s an ease to the way she regards him, and he finds comfort in the familiarity. He has strange, incomplete memories of her. Monstrous, hungering, a creature of shadow guarding the pass of Cirith Ungol. He recalls a certain amount of mindfulness, coupled with a very reasonable fear. It’s the way one is mindful of the edge of a cliff, borne of respect and maybe a little bit of wonder. He knew of the spider, knew of her hunger and her inherent darkness, but only now does the name drifts up from the Soldier’s tattered memory.

“Shelob,” he says. He glances sidelong at her, thinking of his own former name, _Borlas_ , and how poorly it fits him now.

“Hmm,” the spider says, considering the name carefully before speaking again. “I may have been her, once. Though I think no longer.”

The simple way she rejects the monster she had been is baffling, discarding it like an empty sack, as if the death and misery she had surely caused is no nevermind to her current incarnation.

“How?”

The spider tilts her head, considering the simple question as she watches the archer’s back. “I have been many things to many peoples. Who but me is to say which is my true self? Besides,” she adds. “This new path is more fun.”

The Soldier laughs, but quickly stops himself when the elf glances back at them. He’s not sure who the elf is glaring at harder, himself or the spider. He considers shadow stepping just to avoid that piercing gaze, but suddenly senses the wraith world. There’s no shape to it, no overlord of the realm to give it a mouth, but he still manages to conjure an image of something grinning at him from the other side, thrilled at the thought of him joining it.

The image vanishes when the herald speaks up.

“This is Hardwallow,” he explains gesturing to the few short buildings along the dusty road. “It isn’t much, but the tavern takes in travelers from time to time. Um, maybe everyone could wait outside while I see if old man Bromley is still awake.” It’s diplomatic of him to not point out the spider or the Soldier directly, but no one could blame him if he had.

They are a strange company, even stranger than the Soldier’s earlier party, which he now finds himself worrying over. If they have made it safely to Minas Tirith, would they have perhaps come in contact with this rogue wizard? The dwarf apparently has some sort of weapon, an invention that is meant to aid in the war against the lingering darkness in King Elessar’s domain. Has that weapon now come to the hands of Ultron the Blue and been turned to ill purpose? In addition to that concern, the thought of Maria, Rhodirion, and even Toni coming to harm is… _frustrating_. They had barely known him and yet had shown him a wholly undeserved amount of kindness and faith.

The herald arranges for a meal and beds within the tavern’s dormitory, which is not much more than a long hall heated by dual hearths on either end, narrow beds lining the walls in between them. It looks more like a healing ward than an inn, but they each get their own beds and trunk to sit on as they all try their hardest to ignore one another.

The elf volunteers to curry the horses as they settle in over a meal of cured meat, winter apples, hearty bread and small cups of surprisingly fragrant mushroom soup. The Soldier is halfway through his tray, having picked his bed nearest the door, before he realizes he feels no satisfaction from the fare, despite its comforting flavors. He no longer suffers hunger, and though he had been fed generously in Caras Galadhon, hadn’t thought to eat on the road alongside the rest of his group. The reminder of his current situation, trapped in such a strange combination of both life and death, manages to turn his stomach. He sets the tray aside, and pulls his mask back up.

“Hungry?” the spider says, her green eyes sparkling in the low lamp light over his abandoned meal. She has picked the bed opposite his, facing him as he eats and managing to make him feel awkward with her unblinking stare. Still, he recognizes a kinship with her yet again, as he notices they both picked the beds nearest the doors to act as sentries for the rest of the group, guarding against any enemy that might try to enter. He hands his tray across the short path between the bed rows, hoping the archer doesn’t mind. He isn’t sure how the deaf human managed to ingratiate himself to her in particular, but now that the elf seems to have accepted her presence, she doesn’t seem to fear being forsaken or condemned by the others for her dark provenance. She even curls up on top of the blankets once she’s finished, and closes her eyes. Soon her breathing slows to a restful cadence. It must be exhausting, eating two helpings of supper and the soul of an immortal necromancer in one evening.

The archer and the herald are already asleep by the time the elf returns, still fighting a limp from the injury in his thigh, and while the Soldier had lain his head down on the soft pillow, he knows sleep won’t find him. Instead, he cautiously watches the elf from under his hood. The star on his breastplate sparkles only with reflected lamplight, no longer ablaze with heavenly luminescence. With the barest whisper of sound, he removes the largest pieces of armor, the scale male beneath them, and the petal-shaped leather skirt beneath that. His lips press into a thin line as he exposes the bloodied silk of his breeches. It doesn’t take long for him to work a strong smelling unguent into a clean white bandage and press it against the wound, but the Soldier finds himself transfixed to the ritual, watching the graceful movements of such a fair being.

“ _Lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad…_ ” the elf softly whispers, massaging the bandage with one hand as he wraps gaussian silk around his thigh to keep it in place. The healing chant makes no sense. The Soldier knows it’s meant to be administered by one elf to the wounded. Experience tells him that this particular elf— _Sedryn Amathion_ —does it out of habit, to focus his thoughts. He must be in quite a bit of pain, the Soldier thinks, at the same time as wondering how he might know such a thing. In truth, there is so much the Soldier finds familiar about this elf. He knows of smiles that he has never seen, laughter he hasn’t heard, and a warm scent like fresh linen and sage. By rights he has no business knowing any of this, and yet…

The elf lets out a slow, tentative breath, and his broad shoulders finally lose some of their edge. “Do you sleep in your mask, stranger?”

The Soldier freezes, thinking at first to feign sleep, but quickly accepts that he’s been caught staring. He slowly sits up, drops his booted feet back to the wooden floor. “Stranger… Is that what I am?”

The elf turns sharply around at his words, perhaps misunderstanding.

“No longer a Morgul assassin,” the Soldier clarifies. “No longer _Hesohtar_ … I suppose I should shed the name, but I don’t feel free of it yet.”

The elf shakes his head. “Hard to accept a new identity when you still choose to hide your face.”

“I wear the face of a man you once knew,” the Soldier says, and watches the elf’s eyes go nearly black in response. It isn’t fair, it’s impossible for the elf to truly respond over so many sleeping bystanders, but the Soldier has no other answer. “You find it discomforting.”

“Can you honestly say you aren’t he?”

Now it’s the Soldier’s time to be taken off his guard, wishing he could say more, wishing he could _ask_ more. It’s uncomfortable, but he’s earned that painful rebuke. Instead of answering, he gets to his feet. “I do not need rest. I’ll stand watch, instead.”

Because he’s a stubborn nuisance, the elf reaches for his cloak. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’re no good to anyone with only one leg,” the Soldier tells him bluntly, even as he dons the knife that caused the injury. The irony is not lost on him, but if he’s able to keep the elf in rest he’ll gladly accept the responsibility.

Then the elf tells him, equally blunt, “So says the man with one arm.”

The Soldier glances down at what remains of his left shoulder. _The nerve!_

Even though the Morgul arm is gone, the metal anchor remains where it had been driven into the flesh of his shoulder. The seam where metal meets flesh is still hot with pain, but he won’t miss the weight of that monstrous thing. The scarring on his stump already feels old and worn in, the skin puckered tight, sensitive to the touch of his own garments.

The Soldier tentatively rolls the residual limb. “I suppose I won’t be much of a bowman from here on out.”

With each other’s company, however begrudgingly accepted, the two pass quietly through the dark tavern hall and outside into the night. Autumn has crept into the world, with nights cold enough for their breath to form in little white clouds before their mouths as they walk in silence down the lane. The elf’s limp is barely noticeable by now, his gait more relaxed since shedding so many layers of cold white armor. Without the other humans or horses, everything is even quieter. Settled. A creek runs beneath a short bridge, nothing more than a narrow trickle of water that marks Hardwallow’s Eastern border with the Drúadan Wood.

The elf stops here, leaning onto the bridge’s carved railing. Despite expecting the elf to break their armistice in order to have his say, the Soldier’s breath stills at his words. “You are Borlas, son of Eurion. Of Fornost. Knight of King Elendil, hero of Dagorlad, sergeant of the Howling—”

“Stop,” the Soldier cuts him off with a downward slash of his hand. He has only one foot on the bridge, as if keeping the other on solid ground gives him the strength he needs to confront this conflicting truth. “Borlas, son of Eurion… Maybe I was he at one time, but no longer. He died—and died with _honor_ —in an age long past.”

“Defending Prince Elendur in the Gladden Fields…” the elf quietly adds. His voice adds music to an otherwise hopeless tale, soft and melodious with his elvish accent. His eyes are still downcast in the trickling, nighttime waters. “Honored, yes. Not forgotten.”

“I am _Hesohtar_ ,” the Soldier hisses, taking another step onto the bridge. “The Winter Soldier. A servant of Mordor these past three _thousand_ years, and slave to Commander Pierce for the slaughter of those poor Drúadain you just fought mere _hours_ ago.”

“Bucky—”

“Don’t call me that!”

The elf shuts his mouth, as their conversation rams into the dead end. Bucky watches him flex and dip his head back, gazing up at the stars rather than down at the water. The silence settles around them as he visibly holds back all the arguments that the Soldier can clearly see smoldering under that cool expression. Finally, the Soldier follows the elf’s upward gaze. There, among the dark fingers of redwood branches, gleams the light of a single star. Eärendil looks down at them, alone in the night sky. It makes him shiver, and touch the stump of his left shoulder, where another single eye used to be branded into his arm.

“ _Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo_ ,” the elf says, his lyrical voice turning mournful. _A star shines on the hour of our meeting._ It’s a formal Sindarin greeting, but so much more. The Soldier can picture it effortlessly, as he can picture many things about this person beside him: Eärendil, the star of High Hope, providing guidance for this one Ñoldor elf for century upon century of solitude. Here, in this remote village, it shines again, alone, as if it peeks through the heavens for the sole purpose of lighting their way.

Suddenly, the Soldier can’t breathe. He tears the mask away, gasping as memory upon memory fills in on top of all he knows already about this stubborn, arrogant, _ass_ of an elf. He remembers a silver, elvish mirror, wrapped in green ribbons, an unexpected gift. He remembers reading out loud in a private moment, sharing his favorite tales of gallantry against corsairs along the southern coasts. He remembers beautiful drawings, stacks and stacks of sketches. Birds, beasts, fresh flowers and sweeping landscapes, all in a hand so fine it barely seems possible. He remembers weeping over the fallen, celebrating with the living, resting side-by-side beneath the same, soft blankets and exploring skin, sweet lips, and long golden hair.

“ _Steve,_ ” he breathes out, and the elf looks down in shock. “ _Rivendell_. I was supposed to… The ambush!” It’s too much, too fast, but before he can collapse under the weight of it, Steve is there, gripping the sides of his face with gentle hands.

“You are he,” Steve whispers, unshakable confidence carving the words out of stone. “I promise you, whatever sins were thrust upon you, you are Borlas, son of Eurion. Honorable Dúnedain from the North.”

The Soldier laughs, because no, he’s not.

“Bucky,” he chokes out, and tears escape the corners of his eyes when he places his own hands over Steve’s. “Just Bucky.”

Steve’s smile is full of so much hope and pain and Bucky can’t help but shut his eyes against it. He leans forward, touching Steve’s forehead with his own, and the years tumble down like the collapse of a mighty fortress, bringing them back to that moment in Osgiliath, in the barracks, when they had last said their goodbyes.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers. This time the name fits better than Borlas or Hesohtar, because this is a name for him here, right now, with Steve. “Welcome home.”

* * *

Beautiful big bang art by [@hoozoo](http://hoozoo.tumblr.com/post/183344377463/bucky-steve-whispers-this-time-the-name-fits). Absolutely love the way this tender moment was captured, love the creative design of Steve's armor, of Bucky's arm, and love the rising mist of the river... 

 


	10. Rammas Echor

The vast stretch of time that has passed since their last parting is still unassailable, so instead, in the quiet hours of the night over the gentle murmur of a creek, they talk about all that _is_ rather than what _was_. 

Steve speaks of the new human king and elvish queen. The great quest into the North to reclaim the realm of Arnor. The current efforts to purge darkness from Mordor. The exodus of the Eldar. 

Bucky sits on the bridge’s wide wooden rail, gazing out as Steve talks, interjecting with a rare question or two, but on the whole seemingly content to just listen. He admits surprise that Steve himself is still in Middle-earth. Steve doesn’t explain how that came to be, or his choice to remain ever after, in service to King Elessar.

When Bucky chooses to speak, his words are halting, tentative, as if recalling his native tongue is a struggle. He recounts his road south from Lothlórien and his three, odd companions, along with their mysterious mission to deliver some Dwarvish invention to Minas Tirith. Bucky doesn’t know what the invention is, but is sure it’s as flamboyant as its inventor. He speaks of them with equal parts vexation and respect, and Steve suspects he’s become more than a little fond of the group.

“Have you ever heard of a dwarf with a _short_ _beard_?” Bucky says derisively. Still, Steve can hear the smile on his voice, despite the mask that Bucky seems more comfortable wearing than not. Then Bucky glances back to Steve, his mood palpably shifting. “Though, I suppose... it’s as rare as an elf with short hair.”

Ah. _That_.

Steve runs a hand through the closely cropped hair, then holds the back of his neck for a moment before resting both elbows on the railing. He’s gotten used to it, hardly considering how odd it may look to someone who had known him _before_. “It was damaged some time ago. When I had... _difficulty_ at sea. After shearing it the first time, I couldn’t bring myself to continue as I had been.” The closer he gets to speaking about the past, the more his words refuse to form in his mouth. “The change felt necessary, in order to face the ages to come.”

“I… I had been particularly fond of your hair… at one time,” Bucky says, his thumb finding a splinter in the railing and working at it as he speaks. The self-conscious fidget conflicts with Steve’s memory of Bucky’s charm and confidence, the way he had always known his own mind so well. Only a spark of that fiery personality remains, like a forge burning low. Bucky tosses the splinter into the creek. “Is that not so?”

Steve swallows. Now it’s his turn to search for words in Westron. At length, all he can say is, “Yes.”

Bucky is quiet for a long time after that, and they both turn to watch the clear water carry on over brush and stone, finding its way in the dark so easily, oblivious to its audience. Steve is hardly so carefree, desperately aware of how close his own elbow is to Bucky’s hip. The distance is necessary—he has no idea how to touch his former lover—but it’s at least not an impassable gulf. Besides, soft voices are all that’s needed to feel out the raw edges of renewed friendship. He’s happy enough to have that intimacy.

Once the morning fog rolls in, Bucky hops back over the rail without a word. They return to the main road, heading back to town as the first light of dawn breaks through the trees in thick, muffled beams. Together they retrieve their armor and horses, and soon the mounts are ready for the next leg of their journey. Turma is nervous of Bucky at first, but quickly warms to him after he feeds her an apple leftover from his supper. 

“I thought you above simple bribery, my friend,” Steve whispers in her ear, but all she does is heave a guilty sigh and admit she’s not. He pats her neck, smiling as he watches Bucky head inside the tavern to rouse the others. Steve’s whole body is flush with emotion, cheeks prickling with heat as he considers what this all means. Bucky, _alive_. By some miracle at Steve’s side once more, here to welcome the Fourth Age. He had long since forsaken hope, but now it pours through him, like a rush of molten steel from his chest, unstoppable. 

Bucky must have been blessed by Mandos, returned to Middle-earth like the mortal man Beren of ancient legend. After that miracle, Beren had been known as _i-Cuilwarthon_ : the Dead that Live Again. Is that what Bucky is now? Though, that hardly explains the dark shadow that clings to him, an evil cloak he seems able to wrap himself in at will, to hide from Steve’s keen sight. When Bucky had first attacked at Osgiliath, Steve thought he’d been a wraith, the same ilk as the Nazgûl. Now, he can clearly see Bucky still has a solid body, still breathes living breath, heart beating beneath warm breast. He has dark crescents under his eyes, so perhaps he needs the sleep that had been eluding him overnight. _i-Cuilwarthon._

Steve combs through Turma’s forelock with his fingers, putting the question aside. The spider has emerged from the tavern, still licking her lips from her breakfast. He’ll need to keep a careful eye on that one. The thought has him imagining what Pallando the Blue— _Ultron_ —has planned for Osgiliath’s palantír. Have all wizards turned from the path of righteousness? Yet, here he is trusting Alatar the Blue. _Vision_.

... _And a living spawn of Ungoliant_ , he thinks. Though perhaps, if a wizard can turn down a path to darkness, a descendent of Maiar—so diminished from her origin—can step onto a path towards light. 

Before long the group is on the road. Sam leads, with Clinton and Natasha following. Steve sticks to the rear with Bucky, though they haven’t picked up the dangling threads of their earlier conversation. An uncomfortable swirl of tension weaves through the company, keeping them all quiet on principal. Clinton clearly has lost trust in Steve, while inexplicably trusting the spider. Sam seems to be practical enough to accept the company he’s been forced into, but Redwing has been glaring dangerously at Bucky from his perch on Sam’s shoulder. Birds tend to forgive far less easily than horses, and birds of prey are especially hard to win over. And Bucky… Steve still doesn’t know what to think of his lover, returned from the dead, though his instincts want him to trust the long lost Dúnedain with his whole heart. 

The ride becomes a little lighter when the Northern Gate of the _Rammas Echor_ comes into view. Translated in Westron as the _Great Wall,_ the fortification surrounds the hitherto undefended townships that lay outside the protective wall of Minas Tirith itself. The Northern Gate had been part of the first major works completed in the realm after the war. In the wake of being breached by the Witch-king’s forces and then (as blessed fate would have it) breached again by the armies of Rohan when they came to Gondor’s aid, there had been little left of the fortification by the war’s end. Now, fresh stonework weaves into older, darker blocks like shining scales, meeting together at a massive gateway spanning the distance between crenellated towers. The gate itself is dark, solid wood, reinforced with iron and carved in relief with images of warriors on horseback, in honor of Rohan’s brave cavalry.

It’s a stunning sight, a comforting bulwark against darkness and celebration of fellowship, or it would be if it wasn’t immediately apparent that something is disastrously wrong. The troupe had bypassed this gate on their route from Osgiliath to the Great West Road, but it had still been visible from the path they took. Dozens of men are meant to be stationed here, yet there is no sign of life whatsoever. The single, smaller door set within the larger gate meant for individual riders stands open and unattended. 

“Obvious trap,” the spider flatly states. “No men here. No horses.” 

“Are we too late?” Clinton asks, his voice hitting that strange pitch when he’s trying to be quiet even as he can’t hear himself speak. 

Without hesitation, Bucky walks forward. “I’ll investigate.”

“Wait!” Steve orders, and Bucky stops short, shooting him a confused look over his truncated left shoulder. “I… it’s….” _It’s too dangerous. It’s too soon to be parted once more. If we are to fall, let it be together for once. You only have one arm!_

“Friend or foe,” Bucky grinds out, turning back towards the lifeless gate. “No one will see me coming.” 

Steve has no idea if the tightness in Bucky’s voice is from irritation, attempted reassurance, or simply Bucky’s new normal. At any rate, Steve doesn’t have the power to stop him.

There’s a sound, like the decaying whisper of menacing voices from inside a long forgotten tomb, then a sudden sucking of air through broken stone as Bucky vanishes. It’s not quite the same as the shriek of Nazgûl, but could just as easily have been a whisper of one. Turma takes an uneasy step back, and Steve himself feels pressure build up along his spine in warning. It’s the unmistakable taint of the wraith world brushing up against their own, like a winter storm sneaking through the cracks of a poorly fit door as Bucky passes through. He forcibly crushes his instinctive revulsion. The cold shadow quickly moves off, taking Bucky with it.

“Hard to get used to that,” Sam mutters darkly. 

Steve doesn’t want to agree but also can’t avoid it. It’s different than it had been when he faced Bucky outside of Hardwallow, when he had used the cold power of the wraith world at will, wielding it as a weapon, or pulling it around himself like a cloak. Now it whispers doom and promises at the same time, like a living thing. It makes Steve’s blood run cold, but he says nothing, waiting beside the others for Bucky to offer them some sign of what to expect beyond the Wall. Steve can hear movement along the stone of course, the hurried footfalls of a frantic muster, the scrape of steel and clink of armor. On either side of the massive door is a guard tower, rising several storeys above the main battlement. The windows are not much more than narrow slits for archers to take aim at potential invaders below, and though there is nothing but darkness beyond them Steve can tell someone—or some _thing_ —occupies the guard rooms. Friends surely would have raised a greeting by now, rather than skulk in darkness. 

Steve moves the moment he hears the unmistakable _thwang_ of a bowstring being loosed. Out of a darkened window the dart whistles through the air, and Turma leaps sideways at his command. He reaches out and snatches the arrow aimed at his horse before it could zip past him and into Sam. 

“Orcs!” He warns, snapping the black arrow in his fist. He brings his shield up to block the next volley. The arrows pelt against it with a clink of metallic rainfall. “Behind me!”

 _Where is Bucky?_

Just as the worry begins to form, a twisted figure is tossed from the ramparts of the Easternmost tower, arms pinwheeling as it plummets to its death. The sound of tension along bowstrings stop abruptly, replaced with wretched screams and the shout of desperate orders.

Steve leans forward. “Onward!” 

With that simple command, the four charge towards the gate. Turma leads with her powerful strides, sharp hooves cutting into the gravel as she closes the distance. Redwing launches off Sam’s shoulder, following the path of the first missile overhead. The spider simply vanishes. More orcs tumble over the ramparts, crashing into the stoney ground as Steve hurtles through the narrow portal. 

Turma executes a perfect rollback, then immediately begins to climb the wall’s inside stair. The steps are designed for soldiers to quickly rush to the wall’s topmost defenses, exposed and narrow, but the nimble elf horse practically dances up the stone. Lying in wait at the top of the stairs is a wounded orc, crawling along the flat top of the battlements. He swipes at her with the jagged end of a broken sword, but she rears up and ends his wretched life with a stamp of her hooves. Behind him, Steve can hear Clinton and Sam calling out to one another, clearing the small courtyard beyond the door and working their way through the lower levels. 

“Nothing but dead orcs,” Sam calls up as Steve dismounts and sends Turma back down. “And long dead soldiers...”

Steve hadn’t held out hope for the regiment’s survival, but it’s a shame they had fallen to such a foe. How had orcs breached these sturdy gates in the first place? The signal fire should have been lit, or a falcon sent, reinforcements from the city only an hour away. Entire armies are meant to break themselves apart against this bulwark, as ocean waves crash against impenetrable rock. 

For now, dead orcs litter the path along the way to the eastern guard tower, crumpled against their stations, weapons remaining in their tattered belts. They had been taken by surprise, none standing a chance of drawing on their attacker. Inside the tower’s guard room, several more orcs lay dead or dying, though the orderly furniture and shining weapons racks makes it clear they had very little opportunity to defend themselves. Redwing’s call grabs Steve’s attention, so he trots up the wooden stairs leading to the tower’s flat roof. Here he finds another kind of slaughter—feathers mired in old, dark blood, beak broken and legs shorn off. Beside the dead falcon, an Anórien herald lies in a crusted pool of his own blood.

Redwing’s next cry is mournful, low in his throat as he nudges the dead bird’s remains. When he glances back up at Steve, fury has darkened his eyes.

“I’m so sorry for the loss of your kin,” Steve softly tells him and gives the bird a moment of peace to mourn his fellow messenger. A quick survey of the room gives him more things to consider. “This murder is a day old. A strategic attack to cut off communication.” The herald had been killed with torch in his hand, black at the tip where the pitch had gone out. At the top of each tower is a signal brasier, installed during the renovation to warn of attack. Even more than the murdered allies, that snuffed out torch has horrifying implications. “So the signal fires were never lit…” 

A single unit of orcs should not have conquered one of Gondor’s strongest outposts so easily, or with such stealth. There are too many missing pieces to this puzzle, so Steve makes his way back down from the tower’s grim roof. He heads across the arch, over the proud doors and towards the west tower. He still tracks the humans below by sound, leaving them to deal with the few orcs found alive with quick strikes and true arrows. Steve is mostly concerned that along with the malicious worry that builds in his mind over this mystery, he has also lost any sign of Bucky.

As if the reminder had summoned him, Bucky suddenly reappears just ahead of Steve, shadows leaching from his dark visage. He’s covered in orc gore, fully hooded and masked.

“Bucky,” Steve breathes out, relieved at first. “What’s the—”

Still gripping one of his Gondolin knives, Bucky raises a cautious finger between them, requesting silence. The blades cast blue light into the shadow of his hood, and Steve goes cold when he catches the stark chill in the human’s eyes. Bucky had been waiting for him before entering this tower, which means he expects enough of a fight to need backup. Perhaps on account of him now being down a hand, or perhaps for the opportunity to give Steve something to do. 

Steve nods in grim understanding, readies his shield, and together they kick in the door. Steve leads, shield raised high to protect them from a sudden volley of orc arrows. They go glancing off the polished steel, skittering across the stones at Steve’s feet, and then Bucky launches up over Steve’s shoulder, spinning into their ranks, trailing a lightning strike of blue steel. 

The orcs had enough time to throw tables and chairs down before them in a rough barricade against the ghost that had been cutting through their ranks. It does them little good as Bucky rebounds from every inch of flat surface and immediately overcomes their improvised defenses in merciless efficiency. The glowing blade drinks black orc blood over and over again, cutting through the creatures even as they surge upward in a single, seething mass of gnashing teeth and scrabbling weapons. 

Bucky had no need for Steve’s help to clear this nest. The orcs can’t stand a chance against him, even missing an arm. Squat and stumpy, tall but lean, grey and green and mottled by scars and deformities, these orcs are hardly the strong fighters that Bucky had recounted earlier. Steve practically breaks one in half with a shield bash, then spins to lop the heads off three others. Several crawl overhead like beetles, clinging to the guard room rafters with long, yellow claws in attempt to flank the deadly pair. Bucky plants his knife into an orcs skull, then launches daggers through the air, pinning one of the crawling orcs to the ceiling before retrieving his mainhand weapon and fighting on. Steve skewers another as it drops down over the orc’s failed wall, then kicks aside a table, breaking the arm of one creature cowering against it. 

The whole thing is over in less than thirty seconds, and several dozen orcs lay shattered on the floor. Still, the moment it’s over, Steve feels a wash of intense weariness, a deeply physical exhaustion as if he had been hoisting his shield for centuries, slashing his sword for a millennia. His bones nearly turn to water inside his flesh, but then he feels the sturdy presence of Bucky beside him, breathing deep with that strong, familiar cadence that Steve had once known so well, and the exhaustion turns into something more soothing. It’s almost as if his hröa—his soul—has found something akin to... _peace_. 

A contented sigh rises in his chest, escaping from a deep well, long since frosted over with sorrow. He nearly lowers his sword, nearly turns to Bucky to share in the rare thrill of serenity, but then Bucky marches into a thicket of twisted limbs and grabs ahold of a single, squirming mass from the carcasses. 

“No!” The orc squeals, kicking against Bucky’s iron grip. “Fak Hesohtar! Have mercy! We did not know it was you!”

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, as the peace that had filled him entirely only a moment before drains out onto the filthy stones beneath his feet.

The orc, who is missing half its foot and an eye, spits blood as he thrashes like a wild animal in a hunter’s trap. Bucky drives him into the stone wall hard enough to momentarily knock the creature senseless, then pins him across the chest with his forearm. “What shall it be, wretch?” Bucky sneers. “Will you tell the elf what you are doing here? Or will you force me to seek the answers for myself?”

Steve doesn’t correct Bucky’s mistake in thinking he could have possibly been addressing the Orc.

“Mercy, great one!” The orc screams again, his remaining eye rolling from side to side, as if still seeking a path of escape. “You wouldn’t kill faithful Nazlûk!”

Bucky spits out something so foul in the Black Speech, that Steve closes his eyes and looks away. He can’t bring himself to translate it, even in the dull throb of silence between his ears that follows the sound of that cursed tongue. He already understands that this orc somehow knows Bucky, and that’s enough to give him pause.

“Last chance, Nazlûk,” Bucky warns, leaning into orc even harder. “I know you’re the war chief’s bootlicker. How did you take this fortification? Who let you in?”

The orc gives one more feeble thrash before Bucky drops him. For a split second Steve believes Bucky will simply dispatch the useless creature and the dread building up inside him will go unfounded. Instead, Bucky clamps onto Nazlûk’s balding head, fingers digging into the putrid flesh of his flaking scalp, and Steve’s breath is stolen away along with the dim light of the tower guard room. Blue black light, like moonbeams reflecting off a fathomless pool, shoot out from between Bucky’s fingers, and saps all other light from the room. The same deathly sigh whispers through the air as frost creeps in around them, as if Bucky is opening a door to the wraith world and dragging the orc’s wretched soul through it, and the light becomes sinister, cursed. Bucky’s eyes take on the light as well, and it pours out of his mouth, as if shadow itself has taken form. 

Nazlûk screams and Steve wants to look away. No elf would feel true sympathy for an orc, but in that moment Steve cannot bear the pitiful sight of his torture. Still, he forces himself to witness this, to witness Bucky committing this bizarre ritual. Steve isn’t even sure he could stop him if he tried. A white beam bursts from Nazlûk’s bulging eye, just before Bucky crushes his skull into gorey pulp. The body falls to the wooden floorboards, and it’s finally over. 

“It was the wizard,” Bucky explains, wiping his gloved hand on Nazlûk’s ratty jerkin. “A trap has been set for you.” 

Steve is still so stunned he can’t muster a reaction to the news. What surprise could it be that Ultron has betrayed them, a rogue Istari akin to Saruman the White rather than Gandalf the Gray… The thought comes more like a dreamy realization rather than a thunderstrike of ill news, and still all Steve can do is watch. Bucky sheathes his knife and turns back to Steve. 

“We have to warn the others. He intends to—Steve?”

Steve swallows, and his hand instinctively tenses around the hilt of his sword. “What… are you?” 

Bucky takes a half-step back, eyes going wide. For a moment they just stand there, within arm’s reach and yet so painfully far apart, staring at each other as if for the first time. Finally, Bucky is the one who breaks the silence.

“I told you,” he says, voice flattened by the weight of defeat. “The curse of shadow—”

They are immediately interrupted by the great blast of a horn. Steve turns his attention to the courtyard, his keen hearing picking up the sound of hooves and calls of human soldiers. He had been so occupied with battle and subsequent horror, that he hadn’t been listening for the approach of men on horses. 

“Ultron,” Steve says, already aware of the wizard’s influence, if not his presence. He glances to Bucky, and a tense moment passes where Bucky regards him carefully, as if questioning his trust. Steve himself isn’t sure what might have changed between them, but he’s certain his own faith hasn’t wavered. Steve’s strategic mind takes over after that brief moment of confusion. “He doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Understood,” Bucky answers darkly. He steps backward into the wraith world’s dark embrace, slipping out of sight with a drift of icy wind and that groping, entombed sigh.

Steve suppresses a shiver, and thinks that Sam’s right. It’s _very_ hard to get used to that. 

By the time he leaves the guard tower and trots down the exposed steps in the inner wall, knights on horseback have flooded through the gates, expertly drawing into a formation with Commander Thaddeus at their head. On their sea-blue tabards, white swans with open wings soar above the bows of proud white ships, marking them as the Swan Knights of Dol Amroth.

“Hail, Knights of Dol Amroth!” Steve calls out. He drops over the edge of the steps, landing lightly beside Turma. Clinton and Sam had rallied there, hands still on their weapons. Redwing circles overhead, awaiting Sam’s orders. “Hail, Commander Thaddeus, the Thunderbolt of Pelennor Fields.”

“Captain Amathion,” Thaddeus dully greets. He sounds surprised to find Steve here, but not pleasantly so. The knights surrounding the courtyard have yet to dismount their horses or put away their weapons, their long spears bristling around Steve’s group like the bars of a cage. “The good Prince Imrahil was told by Ultron the Blue that an attack was taking place on Rammas Echor. I see now that our aid was unneeded.” 

“Only far too late,” Sam tells him, smiling despite the cutting words.

“Trusting heralds from Anórien to warn us in time is surely our only source of delay,” one of the Swan Knights bites back. He’s wearing a gold braid on the shoulder of his broad pauldrons, a mark of captaincy among their ranks. “Had we received a falcon—”

“The Herald Riley seems to have fallen on ill fortune,” Sam bites back, arms crossed stiffly over his chest. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, though. Would you.”

The captain of the Swan Knights visibly bristles, his shoulders going back as his stallion stamps his foot against the flagstones, the trained war horse responding instinctively to the rising aggression in his rider. Steve can hear pure discord growing between his companions and the dozen of Gondor’s finest knights. Whatever Ultron had said when he briefed this team has clearly been fermenting into poison. For them to distrust one another with a host of orcs lying dead at Rammas Echor is folly, but Commander Thaddeus doesn’t seem to be interested in stopping it.

This is the trap Bucky had meant to warn them against. Their group conveniently appearing at a breach in the Rammas Echor. Suspicious enough to sew in distrust with the loyal Swan Knights. Perhaps, their group had never meant to survive long enough to meet the knights, who have fallen completely for Ultron’s manipulations. In this situation, Steve thinks he may have been first to draw steel against these foolish mortals, but Ultron hadn’t counted on Bucky being with him. Perhaps it makes him more cautious, or more suspicious.

“Peace,” Steve urges, placing a gentle hand on Sam’s shoulder. Into that touch goes all Steve’s intended warning, quickly followed by what he hopes is a look of caution. Sam nods in understanding and holds fast to his grief for his lost countryman, staying his hand from rising against the captain’s ignorant words. Sam is quite a remarkable human to intuit his meaning, and have the strength of will to resist such a cruel goad. 

Steve gives his softed smile to Thaddeus before bowing his head. “We’re in your debt, Commander. For Gondor’s finest knights to ride out to our aid is an honor, and quite the privileged escort back to our fair city.”

The captain that had insulted Sam seems startled by this, and looks sharply to Commander Thaddeus for guidance. Clearly, he had expected them to put up more of a fight. Thaddeus sighs rudely. “Very well. Captain Rumlow, arrange for a host of our company to remain here to await reinforcements from the city.” 

Rumlow seems like he might object, but Thaddeus turns his horse back towards the road. “How fortunate for you that we have prepared the Old Guest House.” 

Steve smiles again, this time to stop himself from saying that he has his own cell among the barracks near The Citadel. It is already clear that Ultron considers Steve’s presence in Minas Tirith to be a temporary inconvenience, and one he prefers to keep at arm’s length. For now, it’s best that he isn’t split up from Clinton or Sam. When the three of them are mounted, he also considers the fact that he hasn’t seen the spider since they charged the gates. Hopefully, she has met up with Bucky and together the two will follow them into Minas Tirith. 

Hopefully, Minas Tirith will survive that deadly combination.


	11. Minas Tirith - The Old Guest House

 

_Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad_

* * *

 

When Bucky occupies the other side—shadow steps—he can still see those beyond the barrier, still touch them if he should want to give his presence away. Elves, unlike any other living beings, glow brilliantly in the monochromatic gloom, as if their very souls are suffused with incorruptible starlight. The moment he sinks into the shadow’s cold embrace, Steve’s concerned face fills with that silver glow, somehow making the darkness brighter. 

The star on his chest burns so brilliantly that Bucky has to turn away or be blinded.

Then Steve rushes out to face whatever emissary Ultron has sent, leaving Bucky in the guard room with what remains of the orc ambush. He feels off-kilter, dazzled by Steve’s light and judgement in equal measure. The way Steve had looked at him…

Bucky had never felt the Morgul taint more keenly than in that moment.

In Hardwallow the night before, he’d told Steve of his curse. He’d warned the elf that his soul had somehow been sundered, partially trapped in his undying body, and partially held fast in the wraith world. Perhaps Steve hadn’t believed him. Perhaps the foolish, idealistic elf doesn’t realize what it means to have been killed over and over again at the whim of a vengeful necromancer.

Bucky slips out of the door, but doesn’t follow Steve’s course towards the courtyard. Instead, he shadow steps quickly along the Great Wall’s battlements, then vaults over the West tower. He drops down to the ground, opposite the retinue of knights from Dol Amroth. This side of the wall is meant for Minas Tirith’s own forces to assemble in a semi-circle around the massive gates, and are easy enough to traverse in stealth, without resorting to shadow stepping. Small buildings serve as officers quarters, which surround a marshalling yard that leads right up to the wall’s massive stone edifice. A few larger halls make up the rest of the outpost, lining the road to Minas Tirith with a bare-bones inn, barracks, and a small trading post that looks like it had been completely ransacked by the orcs. Bucky tucks himself behind the thatched roof stables, off to one side of the road. It reeks of dung and dead horse, but gives him a good view of the yard.

He tries to listen in as Steve confronts the Swan Knight commander, ready to leap into the fray that will surely follow, but surprisingly it’s Steve’s human companions who seem to cause the most tension. From Bucky’s experience, Steve should be the one to lead with a stinging remark or arrogant accusations, yet he remains stoic as the Swan Knights loom over him, clearly looking for a fight. Perhaps the elf is still somewhat hurt and confused, and Bucky finds himself worrying that the idiot has let himself become dangerously distracted by unanswered questions.

 _What are you?_

As if Bucky could possible answer that. A corpse with half a soul? A prisoner of Mordor? A _traitor?_ Bucky had already discussed these thoughts with Lady Galadriel, slowly coming to terms with how he could possibly continue on with such burdensome truth. Yet somehow, none of that had made him feel so utterly wretched as when Steve had finally witnessed the true nature of the curse.

Steve’s defensive stance, his hand on his weapon, the way he had examined the horror that had once been his lover… How could Bucky have thought that a single evening of close conversation could have made up for centuries of distance? Thousands of years of betrayal? Steve belongs in the light, and like that poor bastard Nazlûk, Bucky will only drag the elf into the darkness with him the longer he stays by Steve’s side.

The Swan Knights seem to have lost whatever subversive battle went on at the North Gate, clearly unprepared for Steve’s calm response. Instead, the knights switch formations, one captain leading a cohort away, while the other encircles Steve’s group. They’ll likely act as escort to Minas Tirith, meaning Steve is a prisoner in all but name. A manageable situation, for now.

Bucky has to reposition himself to the ramshackle trading post further down the road, since the knights staying behind have dismounted and now lead a line of horses his way. They’re likely meant to guard the outpost until replacements for the slaughtered guards arrive, along with whatever undertakers will manage the gruesome task of dealing with the dead. He winds up waiting until the knights escorting Steve are a full kilometer ahead before following. He can easily shadow step to Steve’s side if he needs to close the distance in a hurry, and for now it’s best to stay out of sight.

The Swan Knights march proudly, fluttering banners showing their crest of spread white wings on wide fields of cerulean blue. Many wear the same livery as Maria, though less ornamented. He supposes she must hold some position of high rank among them. He can’t help but search their numbers, wondering if he may spot her within their retinue. The Swan Knights are a formidable force and entirely loyal to the crown, so whatever Ultron the Blue had told them to gain their trust must have been deeply manipulative. Perhaps even ensorceled, much like Saruman’s voice had been.

The idea that Steve could have trusted another wizard for a second is absurd. “What were you thinking…” Bucky murmurs. 

“He was looking for purpose,” comes the silky thread of the spider’s voice behind him. She remains crouched in the long grass that grows up against a boulder beside the road, where Bucky has taken up his latest position for a better view of his course. Bucky knew she had slipped past the knight’s notice as well, eluding the retinue as they spread through the guard post. He somehow had expected the two of them would find their way to each other’s side, creeping along the trail, but it’s still a surprise for anyone to sneak up on him.

“And what purpose would you be looking for in a mortal archer who doesn’t know your true name?” 

The spider glances up to him, and her acid green eyes flare before settling into a more contemplative expression. “He calls me Natasha,” she says, with a careless shrug of her shoulder that doesn’t suit her, yet somehow comes across as entirely natural. “I like that name more. It is as true as any other I have been given.” 

“Natasha,” Bucky repeats, feeling the strange combination of syllables on his tongue. “That’s an odd name for an Ungoliant.”

“Not half as odd as your name,” she flatly states, and stands to her full height. “For a demi-wraith.” She walks calmly past the boulder onto the road, the silvery threads of her cowl drifting around her shoulders like a cloud in the light breeze. “Now follow. We hunt them. The two of us.”

Bucky lets the topic of names drop. _Demi-wraith_ isn’t entirely inaccurate, but it’s far too complicated a topic to get into with a creature as old as the world itself. 

“Three of us,” he says, falling into step beside her. She glances back at him, one sharp red eyebrow peaked with interest and Bucky points straight up. She follows his gesture with her eyes to find a falcon on the wing, turning gracefully on the wind, high above their heads. “The herald’s messenger is with us.” 

The spider grins with her too many teeth. “Strong allies,” she says, with a nod of approval. “Strong purpose.”

“Is that why you protect the archer?” Bucky asks. “Is that the purpose you found?” 

She doesn’t answer, and they walk a long ways before either of them speak again. Finally, the impenetrable black rock of Minas Tirith’s outer wall, the _Othram_ , comes into view. The Pelennor Fields are the wide flatlands surrounding the spur of the mountain which had been carved out to form Minas Tirith’s proud levels. There they pass through the old town-lands between the Rammas Echor and the city proper, made up mostly of wooden dwellings for farmers and a few modest settlements. Since the battle of Pelennor Fields, all of them have been reduced to ghost towns and cinders. The Great Gates of the city had also been destroyed in the war, and now glittering mithril masterpieces, forged as a gift from the dwarves of Erebor.

These new gates are indestructible, well guarded, and carefully watched, so the three discreet travelers continue following the Othram South, sticking to the cover of the ramshackle ruins, and consider other options. They pick their way through the shards of what was once an indoor market, smashed crates among the rubble of a collapsed wall, and stop just a few yards short of the massive Othram, nearly a mile South of the main gates. A small tributary runs from an arched drain, weeds growing up along the rocky bank among the debris. Even the earth here is soft with new growth, as wild grasses reclaim what was once a thriving community. 

It’s a good spot to go over, if only because it’s directly below a guard tower set along the wall’s main battlements. The tower windows are narrow, meant for archers, making it difficult to spot someone scaling upward. Bucky can shadow step up the wall if he times his leaps properly. Although, vertical distances tend to reduce his speed significantly, and he is missing an arm. Even if he makes it, once he reaches the top he’d have to— 

The spider suddenly interrupts his thoughts. “Not purpose.”

They had been traveling in silence for so long Bucky had lost track of the question, so it takes him a few steps before he picks up the thread and hums thoughtfully. “Okay. So what does he offer you then?”

“Perspective,” she quickly answers. “When I did not know who I was, Clinton provided an answer that I liked, a path that I could follow... _Food._ ” 

Bucky snorts in an effort to stop up his laughter, and she grins at him. She smiles a lot. It’s unsettling, and not exactly joyful, but confident and dangerous and Bucky decides this version of Ungoliant’s spawn is alright.

“Hungry,” she says matter of factly, in response to his laughter. “Very important to my purpose. The elf? He hungers for purpose, too.”

The abrupt shift of topic catches him off guard, and Bucky puffs out a sober sigh. “What he hungers for doesn’t exist. He desires… someone else.”

“No,” she says with a frown between her eyes as if she’s disappointed that Bucky could be so stupid. “Not just desire. He still searches for his _purpose_. Immortals need a reason to stay here, to go on and on. Most of his kind, they are leaving Middle-earth. Valinor is calling them home. But he could never go while he’s not whole. I think he tried to find a purpose with the mortals. I think he tried to find purpose with the wizard’s mission. This is why he put faith in Ultron the Blue and his palantír. This is why I put faith in the archer. Luckily, the archer’s food is tasty.”

Bucky has nothing to say to that, which is just as well. They both have to turn their attention to the massive Othram and how they can possibly get through it undetected. Even Redwing thinks better of flying directly over the top, and flutters slowly down between them. Bucky tries not to make any sudden movement when the bird alights on his residual left shoulder. Redwing grumbles with dissatisfaction and settles his wings at his sides, apparently accepting an alliance for now.

“Alright,” Bucky starts, gazing up from the shadow of a chimney that stubbornly stands amongst the ashen ruins around its blackened hearth. “The Othram is impenetrable, like the Tower of Orthanc. Said to be unconquerable by steel or fire, unbreakable except by some convulsion that would rend the very earth on which it stands. One hundred feet high and twenty thick, and guarded by men and machine…”

The spider clicks her tongue, unimpressed, and strides into the light. “We _hunt_ them,” is all she says by way of explanation, and Bucky hurries to follow with no idea what to expect.

Truth be told, Bucky would rather have tried to face the wraith world once more, shadow stepping up the wall. Instead, he winds up wrapped in the silk of the spider’s cowl, hauled bodily over her shoulder, and dragged along for the ride. It takes almost no time at all for the spider to scale the wall, slithering in shadows that shouldn’t exist while the sun sinks into the west. How her long, slender fingers find purchase in the smooth black stone is beyond him, and how the guards seem to all look elsewhere the moment the pair of them crest the top is equally absurd. The whole thing is disorienting and unpleasant, until they land on the other side, in an alley between a cluster of narrow houses.

“Easy enough,” the spider tells him, releasing Bucky and Redwing from whatever snare she had made from her cowl and Bucky lands on unsteady feet. He has to use his only hand to hold up Redwing as he stumbles into a wall, then braces himself against the stone to keep from toppling over. Even shadow stepping doesn't feel so foreign to his senses as the weightless strength the spider has, but perhaps he's simply more comfortable with the shadow he knows. She weaves through a few barrels stacked high in the alley to catch rainwater, and peeks out onto the street before looking back and waving him forward. “We hunt them.”

The archer is lucky his food had apparently been tasty.

The street itself turns out to be the _Rath Celerdain_ , Lamprights' Street in Westron. Being the main thoroughfare that wraps around the edge of the city like a belt from the main gates towards the upper tiers, Rath Celerdain is busy, noisy and crowded even in the early evening. Crowds are a blessing, since Bucky easily falls into the flow of traffic, knowing enough about how to evade human attention that he can essentially vanish within them without resorting to shadow stepping. The spider seems to do the same, moving like nothing more than a mote of dust in the wind, and the three of them are able to pass through the crowd until they catch sight of what they are looking for.

Redwing spots it first, giving a series of small, concerned chirps before stretching his wings. Bucky is sure the bird would be gouging his shoulder with sharp talons if it hadn't been for the fact that that particular shoulder is made of metal.

“There,” the spider says, spotting the blue banner adorned with the white swan, fluttering over the tops of civilian heads as the street slopes up the further south it runs. “You were right. They are going to the Old Guest House.”

Bucky isn’t sure that’s a good thing. The company he had traveled with from Caras Galadhon had a mission to escort a weapon to Minas Tirith. The most un-dwarvish dwarf he’d ever met had felt it necessary to prattle ceaselessly about the luxury he had expected once they reached the city, knowing he’d be put up in the Old Guest House. The group had supposedly arrived safely after he had left them in Osgiliath, and now that he sees Steve’s escorts heading the same way, figures they all must be under some kind of house-arrest. 

Though where does that leave Maria? As a fellow Swan Knight, surely they wouldn’t have attempted to sequester her with the others. Still a manageable situation, but less ideal and fraught with unknowns. 

The wizard must be watching Steve’s group closely, quartering them all in the same location, and one of the few places in the city with secured fortifications that isn’t an outright dungeon. The Old Guest House is far back from the street down a broad path between tall hedges, cut off from the foot traffic of Rath Celerdain with heavy iron gates. The gatehouse leads to a small courtyard with stables and servants quarters up front, and the main house stands behind. Its back gardens stretch all the way to the Othram. Anyone inside the grounds would have a sense of being secluded from the bustle of the city, with the unfortunate side effect of being unable to go in or out without being seen. 

The knights take a long time to leave, and even then, four remain posted at the gates out front, and another four at the gatehouse down the gravel path. They don’t notice the twin shadows that slip by them, and perhaps only feel a slight chill as the air shifts imperceptibly while the two steal into the compound, and Redwing glides effortlessly over their heads. They make their way up over the main gate instead of through it, and flatten themselves on the clay shingles of the peaked roof overlooking the small courtyard.

“Mirkwood elf…” says the spider, pointing to Rhodirion where he speaks to the archer and the herald.

“Rhodirion,” Bucky tells her, as she peers suspiciously down. Steve is nowhere in sight, likely gone to board Turma for the evening. “He is one of my own traveling companions. A good one. I think there’s more humans inside.”

“Clinton’s pathfinders,” the spider explains. Her head bobs above her shoulders as she scans the windows facing the courtyard. “Phillip. Melinda. Mac. Peter. All here.”

It makes sense. Ultron must be consolidating likely threats in one place, and all the humans had arrived together. Though the herald and the archer had been with Steve, so where is he now? 

“You!” Comes a belligerent howl from the stables. It’s so loud that the humans below startle around. Redwing leaps from Bucky’s shoulder the moment he shadow steps from the roof. “I ‘oughta— _Rhodey!_ He’s shown up!” Toni calls out over his shoulder. He’s in the stables himself, minding his pony, and there’s Steve, about to make the dwarf one head shorter. Apparently, the dwarf recognizes him from Osgiliath and isn’t so pleased to see him again. “Don’t you go anywhere, you knife-eared treefucker—”

Steve’s sword is halfway drawn as Rhodirion arrives, arrow knocked and ready to fire. Bucky skids out of his shadow step between them and snatches Steve’s wrist. There is only the briefest moment that the elf remains stunned before a frown creases the space between Steve’s sharp eyebrows. Bucky may be in for a fight himself, until Steve blinks and no longer resists Bucky’s grip, almost as if there had been a slight delay in recognizing Bucky at all. Steve’s sword clicks back in its sheath and Bucky turns to his erstwhile traveling companion.

The dwarf’s wide mouth is still gaping with surprise, an accusatory finger pointed at Steve. Bucky only nods at him, unsure of what to say now that he’s come between the two. 

“Dwarf.” 

The dwarf gesticulates madly before finally exploding. “Mumbles!”

“ _Mumbles?_ ” Steve repeats, clearly appalled.

“Steve, don’t—”

“ _Steve?_ ” The dwarf spits out, before he throws his head back and laughs. 

“You can call me _Sedryn_ ,” Steve insists, but there’s no way the dwarf heard him over his own ruckus.

“You can call him Steve,” Bucky tells him, because now Steve is just being petty, like he has to make up for putting his sword away. 

The dwarf’s laughter stops abruptly, and then Steve may as well not exist. “Oy,” he says, frowning with concern. “What happened to your arm?” 

Bucky glances down at the residual limb. He’d forgotten that the dwarf hadn’t been there when Bucky lost it. Again. “I got caught in a wizard’s spell. It didn’t survive.” 

“What a shame.” The dwarf cocks his head to one side, and lifts the edge of Bucky’s cape to inspect the puckered scarring beneath the tattered fabric. “Strange to think a bit of magic could undo such a magnificent bit of engineering.”

“ _Magnificent?_ ” Steve spits, like a curse.

The dwarf leans in close to Bucky, as if to conspire in private, but while staring at Steve whispers loud enough for everyone to hear, “Does this fella’ have some kind of speech impediment or something?”

Laughter erupts from Bucky so suddenly that he’s taken by surprise, and winds up gasping as he chokes it back. Steve looks as if he regrets letting Bucky stop him earlier. He stares flatly at them both, apparently accepting defeat.

“He’s a friend,” Bucky says, finally catching his breath. “An ally. We’re in short supply.”

“Not so short,” Rhodirion adds from the stable’s wide entryway. He nods in greeting to Bucky, then bows his head to Steve, fist to heart, before opening his palm in an outward sweep. “Sedryn Amathion. An honor.” 

“Rhodirion of the woodland realm,” Steve says, his own bow matching the other elf’s in depth and solemnity. “Likewise.”

“Where is Maria?” Bucky asks. “Is she here?” 

Rhodirion and the dwarf share a quick look before the dwarf answers. “Let’s go inside,” he says. “I imagine there are a fair few pair of ears interested in that topic. The welcome hasn’t been at all what I expected, but there’s a ripe cheese in the larder and wine for our elves.” 

Bucky laughs again, and finally Steve manages a smile. Bucky knew he had some sense of humor in there somewhere, perhaps only in need of some dusting. 

As it turns out, the Swan Knights had ridden out in force to meet Maria’s group at the halfway point in the Pelennor Fields. Like Commander Thaddeus’ retinue, they had also been deployed on orders of Ultron the Blue. Maria had tried to get more answers but none of them seemed keen on debriefing her without the wizard present. Then, Toni and his invention had been escorted to the Old Guest House, as he had expected, but then left there with no explanation, no agent of King Elessar, and no ale.

“She departed when we arrived here,” Rhodirion explains, before the dwarf could get sidetracked once more. The banquet hall is richly furnished, with woven tapestries lining the walls, and a table large enough for them all. Steve’s pathfinder troupe has taken up one side, with Rhodirion, Bucky and the dwarf facing them. The herald took up the end seat, and Redwing sits happily behind him on the peaked back of his large wooden chair. The spider is nowhere to be seen, though Clinton doesn’t seem all that concerned. Rhodirion takes another draught of wine from the goblet that rests between his open palms before he speaks again. “She had been keen to find her liege lord, Prince Imrahil. The knights weren’t able to stop her, since she answers to him alone. That was midday yesterday. Did your escort mention her?”

“No,” Steve coolly answers. “The guards out front have said nothing, either. Ultron seems to have barricaded himself in the Citadel, issuing orders from the throne of the steward. We have no way of knowing to what end. Him or the one called Vision.”

Steve may seem calm, but Bucky can tell the small sips Steve takes from his own cup are just to be polite. He’s been only picking at his meal despite it being well past dinner time, and the muscle at the side of his jaw stands out from tension. 

“What is it?” Bucky asks.

Steve pushes his plate away, and folds his arms tightly across his broad chest. It’s strange how he appears even larger without his armor. “I think Maria is onto something,” he says. “I think we’re caught in the middle between two warring wizards. This business with the palantír. Ultron the Blue and Vision the Blue. They hadn’t seemed at odds at first, yet now they are working against one another.” 

“And using us to do it,” the herald murmurs, following Steve’s logic. Redwing finishes swallowing a morsel of cold pheasant and makes a rude sound of frustrated agreement.

“And Pierce,” Bucky quietly adds, and Steve cringes without meeting his gaze. 

“Orcs as well,” says the human named Melinda. She had finished eating first, and now nurses her wine. “Fighting Uruk-hai, no less.”

“Who had once called another wizard _master_ ,” Phillip adds. 

Bucky will never bring himself to fully trust another wizard, but even he had handed over the palantír once it seemed Vision had been a true ally. That could have been Vision’s goal from the beginning. Although what good could a single palantír do for an already powerful Istari? Or had it simply been enough to remove the palantír from play? The thought reminds Bucky that still, regardless of motive, they had been used as pawns.

“So,” says the human named Mac, who seems to be the only one among them willing to point out the obvious question. “What do we do about it?” 

There is half a heartbeat of silence in the banquet hall before the archer speaks, using sign language as well as his voice. Bucky notices he has the habit when he says something worth hearing. “We wait for morning.”

“Morning?” Melinda says, incredulous. 

“We mustn’t wait for Ultron to regroup,” Steve insists, because he’s dense and arrogant and Bucky wants to kick him from under the table. “We still have an element of surprise. If his eye is fixed on his palantír, Vision will have given us the advantage we need.”

“That’s a big ‘if’,” Phillip says.

“I could always let my lady loose,” the dwarf butts in, only for Steve to roll his eyes. 

“We don’t need to get distracted by some dwarvish nonsense,” he says, standing so forcefully his chair scrapes back.

“Steve—”

“We need to send word to King Elessar, call the armies back from the North, and—”

Bucky stands up, switches to Quenya, and finally grinds out, “Since when were you such a fool as to ignore the words of your own commandos?” 

In Quenya Steve retorts, “Since you all died without me!” Anger flares across his red face, and he leaves the table, slamming his chair into place. 

With that, he marches from the hall under a stormcloud of his own making and Bucky can’t get his mouth working, too stunned to speak. The translation from Quenya isn’t literal. Elves don’t have many words for death or dying. In the context of his confession, Steve could have also meant that they had left him behind, traveling together on some journey he had been unable to follow.

Bucky takes stock of the reactions of the others, but it seems Rhodirion is the only one who had understood the implications of Steve’s sharp words, and meets his sad gaze across the table. The archer stands then, refusing to let the council fall apart. 

“I need to explain. I had only meant to wait because—”

“I know why,” Bucky interrupts, passing the archer by to chase Steve down himself. “Stay here. I’ll talk to him.”

“Tell him I could let my lady loose!” The dwarf calls after him. 


	12. Minas Tirith - Rath Celerdain

Minas Tirith is a bastion of human strength in Middle-earth, never once conquered by evil forces from without, despite a period of diminished lordship and corruption from within. Now, the city is home to the court of King Aragorn II Elessar. Each tier of the city is carved ingeniously from the spur of the White Mountains, the pinnacle marked by the Tower of Ecthelion, the seat of Elessar’s power. This is where Steve knows Ultron holds a mockery of the good King’s council, in the chambers which Prince Imrahil is supposed to occupy, off to the side of an empty throne room.

When Commander Thaddeus had escorted Steve, Sam, and Clinton along Rath Celerdain to the Old Guest House, the suspicion formed in Steve’s mind that the individual gates leading to those upper levels had been locked down. More soldiers patrol the wide, busy thoroughfare than patrol the massive Othram, many wearing the livery of Prince Imrahil’s Swan Knights. Ultron must have barricaded himself in the Citadel by now, controlling any possible threats from inside the city walls. Where does that leave the Prince of Dol Amroth? Imrahil holds stewardship over the throne of Gondor whilst King Elessar and Faramir, son of Denethor, are away to the north. Yet when Steve had last been in the city, Prince Imrahil had been markedly absent. At the time, Steve had been so distracted by the return of the blue wizard that he hadn’t even thought to inquire of the prince’s whereabouts.

Of course he agonizes over these now-obvious details when he leaves the banquet hall, furious with Bucky for blatantly questioning his orders. 

The Old Guest House isn’t just a single domicile, but a cluster of buildings circling a private courtyard, intended for dignitaries and other important visitors. It has its own well, stables, and even a garden recently restored by Lady Arwen herself after the the war. Steve had stayed here when he had first arrived in the city a year past, but had quickly moved into the barracks on the upper levels. Lady Arwen—that is, her Majesty—would have gifted the entire grounds to him, a permanent residence in Minas Tirith, but he had declined. At the time he had wanted to avoid any sense of putting down sentimental roots, rejecting—perhaps coldly—the idea that he should now be some part of this human community. He had been assigned to offer guidance, wisdom, training. Not to immerse himself in the civilian population. A job to do. Not a life to live.

Steve grinds his teeth as he takes the stairs, diverting from his initial path towards the gardens in order to head straight to his own room. The estate is large enough that by the time he reaches his chambers, he finally realizes that maybe— _maybe!_ —he’s being foolish. He should have seen through Ultron’s honeyed words. Steve wants to punch something, and winds up kicking a low stool instead. 

“Easy, big guy…” Bucky says from the doorway, so Steve kicks it harder. It hits the wall and topples over, rolling awkwardly in a circle before coming to a stop near the narrow bed. Bucky grunts, and finally— _finally!_ —pulls his hood and mask down around his shoulders. 

“Feel better?” 

“Well,” Steve starts, not at all embarrassed. “I don’t feel _worse_.”

Bucky smiles, almost laughs, and Steve’s heart breaks.

“I’m so sorry!” The words bubble up with a sob Steve can’t stop.

“Hey. It’s not my room,” Bucky mutters, glaring at stool as if it were to blame, and Steve bursts out laughing even as the tears start to spill out over his cheeks.

“Damn it, Bucky,” he says, swiping them away. “I meant for leaving you. Three thousand—”

Bucky closes the gap between them with a single, wide step, stopping scant inches from Steve’s own nose. “Stop.” 

“I—”

“Stop,” Bucky says again, quietly, almost a whisper. “I can’t bear it if you keep mourning me.” 

Steve’s despair is momentarily replaced with confusion, until he blinks away tears and blurts out, “What?” 

Bucky doesn’t move, physically blocking Steve from escaping the conversation. “I know what was done to me was monstrous. I know _I’m_ monstrous. I just… It takes a lot to live like this, to live _all the time_. I don’t want your sorrow to be something I have to survive as well. You deserve so much more.” Bucky’s gaze had dropped to the floor, but he looks up in the silence that follows as Steve tries to parse that statement. “...Steve?” 

“Ah…” Steve has to swallow before he can speak again, and laughs in order to get sound past the lump in his throat. “You idiot human. I don’t mourn you. I _love_ you. Don’t you see? My Fëa is bound to yours. When the shadow touches you I can feel it. The _wrongness_ of it. But there is nothing—” Steve reaches up to caress Bucky’s cheek. Even though Bucky flinches away at first, he closes his eyes and leans into Steve’s palm the very next moment. “ _Nothing_ could make me think you a monster. Not three thousand years in the ice. Not a necromancer’s curse. Not an ugly death or an endless life... _Nothing_. Because I can feel _you_ , too. Borlas. Son of Eurion. _Bucky_.” 

Bucky grins, and Steve cups his sweet, dimpled chin with both hands, wiping away fresh tears with his thumbs. 

“Damn it,” Bucky swears, coughing as he backs out of Steve’s hands. “You elves are such poetic _saps_.” 

Steve shrugs, unable to argue the point, but then Bucky’s good humor seems to vanish all at once. “And stubborn as a dwarvish _ass_. Clinton wants to wait for nightfall because Natasha is likely up to something.” 

“Natasha?” 

“The spider,” Bucky corrects.

 _Ah_ , Steve thinks, then nods. “I see.” Suddenly, it’s as if this emotional moment has reset something inside him that lets him see beyond the years that have passed, and he’s a young Eldar once more, planning strategy with human comrades. “And you trust her?”

Bucky cocks his head to one side, and there he is, that confident human Steve had known—Steve _knows_ —so well. “I think she’s dangerous,” Bucky says. “But not to us. That should be good enough to get what we need. As long as you trust the archer, that is.”

“I trust Clinton,” Steve admits. Why has it taken him so long to come to such a simple conclusion? His pathfinder troupe is the best team he’s worked with since the Howling Commandos. The spider is a whole other riddle to work out, and although she seems to have imprinted herself on Clinton, Steve isn’t sure that’s something he can stake their entire mission on. “I don’t typically deal in ‘good enough’.”

Then again, Clinton is the only one who openly doubted Ultron, while Steve hadn’t questioned the wizard’s motives for an instant. He doesn’t just trust Clint’s loyalty, but his strength, his skill. His judgement? Yes, that too. Truthfully, Steve hasn’t been giving any of them nearly enough credit, or the right leadership, despite all the lofty vows he had made to guide mankind into the Fourth Age. Steve sighs with a great heaving breath, before he sits down on the bed. The wood creaks under his weight, and he feels all three thousand, seven-hundred and fifty-seven years of his age.

When Bucky sits next to him, Steve tries not to be surprised, but still smiles with the sudden delight of feeling the human’s weight next to his own. Bucky eases himself down carefully, as if he only allows for the barest, most tentative relaxation that promises nothing. 

“So we wait until morning?” Bucky asks. 

“We wait until morning,” Steve agrees. “I should tell the others…” 

Bucky nods, but doesn’t stand up. It’s fine. Steve doesn’t feel ready to face the others yet, either. Instead, he looks over at his former lover, sitting close enough for Steve to feel warmth radiating from him. “Does your arm hurt?” Steve gently asks.

Bucky rolls his left shoulder, the remnants of metal still clutching at the seam of his residual limb. “Much less. I used to have to fight it. To actively tune out the pain, and resist the way it wanted to move.”

Steve shifts his weight so that he can face Bucky’s shoulder, and gently twitches the capped sleeve of the black leather jerkin aside. Bucky sucks in a breath, and Steve catches the nervous glance away. 

“May I?”

A muscle in Bucky’s jaw flexes, but he nods. 

Steve holds his breath when he finds the broken pieces of metal still attached to Bucky’s shoulder, flat, sharpened panels that appear as if forged from iron knives. What remains of the red, scraped icon of Sauron’s eye is still visible on the jagged edges. The seam where metal meets Bucky’s puckered scar is red and angry. Steve can’t imagine that it could be anything other than agonizing where it has been forced under his flesh, anchored cruelly with large bolts like a grotesque armored pauldron. When Steve’s fingers brush the knobbled surface, he feels the cold fizzle against his fingertips, the cursed metal reacting to his Eldar nature. 

“I might be able to calm this wound. To force the rest of this contraption to release its hold.” 

Bucky’s answering laugh is grim, and he adjusts his weight, almost squirming now. “If you call on Eärendil, I might go blind.” 

Steve lets the sleeve drop, and Bucky’s shoulders jump in surprise. He darts a furtive glance over to Steve, as if he hadn’t expected his boundaries to be respected. When he fully realizes Steve won’t actually do anything about it, he slumps forward with a wry smile. “I suppose if it were as simple as that the Lady Galadriel would have helped me. Then again, you people never like to make things easy. It’s really true what they say. _Ask not the elves for advice, because they will tell you both 'yes' and 'no'._ ”

“Mm-hm,” Steve grunts, elbowing Bucky in the ribs for the jab. That seems to surprise him too. Each unfamiliar little tick and cautious revelation is new, but at the same time, Steve finds himself able to read Bucky’s body language as always. Keeping his hands away from the scar is one thing, but a playful poke over age-old racial dissonance is delightful as ever. 

Bucky’s comment had been flippant, but may not actually be too far off the mark. Galadriel is Steve’s kin, a Ñoldor elf who, like his parents, originally came to Middle-earth from the shores of Valinor. Of course, she is many thousands of years older than Steve, a natural ruler with a lineage tracing back through all the great Eldar Houses. Steve’s parents had been relatively lowly shipwrights before they had been killed in the skirmishes around Forlindon. 

Surely the Lady of Light would have extracted this putrid metal after she rescued Bucky from the dungeons of Dul Guldur? Yet she had given him wrappings to merely hide it, and a mission to seek council in Minas Tirith instead. Had she anticipated this reunion, or seen it in her mirror? Had she _orchestrated_ it?

‘Both yes and no’ doesn’t even begin to settle how complicated elvish advice can be.

Bucky lets out a contented breath, and drops his head back to look up at the ceiling. “I missed this.”

“Being a smartass?” Steve offers. He’s teasing, but Bucky’s smile slides off his face, as if he just spotted something disagreeable on the ceiling. 

“Being human,” he says. Bucky isn’t trying to be maudlin. He squints up at the ceiling and Steve realizes he’s just picking apart the puzzle pieces, thinking through what he knows like Steve’s watched him do a thousand times. “Natasha called me a _demi-wraith_. I didn’t think it was right at the time, but maybe that’s where this curse will lead me, once my body decides it no longer wants to linger here.”

“Then all my kin are demi-wraith.” Steve reasons.

“I’m serious,” Bucky says, and Steve knows he would have thrown a punch if he had a left arm to do so. 

“As am I,” Steve says. “You know that when our Hröa dies, our Fëa travel to the Halls of Mandos. There, we are judged for our time in Middle-earth and then granted new, immortal bodies to live out eternity in Valinor. But I read about every sundered union recorded in our histories. Some elves have forsaken their immortal lives to live as humans live. One short lifetime and an uncertain death. Some have turned to birds, some to stars,” Steve drops his head back as well to stare at the same ceiling as Bucky, as if the two of them were gazing up at the heavens and not the carved wooden rafters of his chambers. “Some who choose to linger here simply fade altogether… bodies vanishing over time. I think it’s because our Fëa is so strong that even without a mortal wound it will outlast our flesh. Forever bound to its mate.” 

Bucky’s breath catches, and his eyes slowly travel back down to earth, catching on the chair Steve had kicked earlier. “I prayed to Eärendil when I was in the Pelennor Fields. When I _died_.” 

“And maybe now—” Steve stops, and puts a finger to Bucky’s chin to guide his gaze back to him. “Maybe _this_ is his answer. He is the Star of High Hope.” 

Bucky’s mouth fits perfectly against Steve’s own. His lips are hesitant and stiff, but his breath hitches through his nose and his head tilts back and he leans in just enough to make sure Steve doesn’t pull away. Steve feels the tips of his own eyelashes brush against Bucky’s cheeks, feels his own pulse through their kiss as if sharing the same heartbeat. Bucky quietly whimpers before he finally relaxes, and their lips part briefly while he searches Steve’s face, taking stock. 

“I never thought I’d get another chance,” Bucky whispers, breathless. “I never thought someone like me, with all that I have done, could have this.” 

Steve shakes his head, refuting Bucky’s words, but all he can do is kiss him again and again, drawing strength from the mounting heat. The kisses are addictive but wholly natural, like breathing sweet air, drinking clear water. Steve wants the moment to last forever. He cups Bucky’s jaw, feels the stubble of new beard. Every inch that Steve can hold and touch is a treasure, and he’s not sure he will ever be able to let go. 

“No,” he finally breathes out, stroking Bucky’s precious round ears with his fingertips. “This will always be yours. Always. For if neither of us can die a mortal death, then we’ll never be parted again. No matter what form we take. No matter what fate brings our way. We have the blessing of Eärendil.” 

That makes Bucky laugh, then he pulls back with thick swallow. For a moment Steve worries that he’s said something wrong, his hands lingering mid-air where the ghost of Bucky’s warmth still holds them. 

“The stars don’t shine over Mordor,” Bucky says. He unclasps the metal buckles of his jerkin, shrugs out of the long, tattered hood, and drops his mask to the floor. Bucky returns to Steve’s embrace a moment later, shirtless, bootless, and straddles his lap right there on the edge of the bed. He wraps his arm around Steve’s shoulder, presses his forehead into Steve’s, and Steve’s fingers spasm as he digs into the naked flesh of Bucky’s hips beneath the waistband of his breeches. “The stars in you are the only ones I care about.” 

With that, Steve is suddenly drowning, suddenly dying of thirst. He lunges up, reclaims Bucky’s mouth, needing this human like he needs the sun and the moon and the tall, green trees of Middle-earth; the missing piece of his soul. Bucky’s lips part, tongue sweeping across Steve’s, and a jolt of electricity comes with it that ignites Steve’s blood. He sweeps his hand up the cleft of Bucky’s spine, then spreads his fingers across Bucky’s shoulder blades, adding feathers to his lovers’ wings. The edge of sharp metal catches a finger, and Steve twists to lay Bucky flat on his back across the coverlet.

Bucky makes love to Steve slowly, as immortals do. Steve explores every part of Bucky’s body he has missed these four thousand years, and makes new discoveries along the way. The scar on his residual limb is one of them. Up close, the massive keloid has taken over the entire stump, from the top of his shoulder around the uneven end, like a burn. Steve kisses it tenderly, right under the remaining metal plate, while Bucky is between his legs. The attention makes Bucky drop his head to the side of Steve’s face and puff a hot, shuddering breath into his sensitive ear. Steve discovers a whole new thing that makes him whimper, as Bucky’s teeth scrape gently across Steve’s puckered nipple, while his thumb strums the cleavage over his tailbone. 

Then Steve’s on his knees, forehead dropping to the mattress when he can’t stop himself from crying, from moaning out Bucky’s name. Bucky is gentle, but Steve has the coverlet stretched between straining fists, then between his teeth. They hadn’t meant for it to go this far, not tonight, not while so much is on the line, but it builds and builds, until taking root deep inside his body, filling him up with pure, molten pleasure. 

“Steve!” Bucky gasps, and Steve’s name on his lover’s lips is enough to make Steve come with Bucky still inside him. The climax crashes through him, exhausts everything Steve has left, and Bucky follows right behind him, sinking his teeth into his own arm to stop himself from crying out. He collapses across the mattress, utterly spent, and Steve gathers him up for more kisses. 

They lay in each others’ arms for hours. The lamps burn low as the evening drags on, with nothing and no one to bother them. Eventually, Steve rescues the coverlet from the floor and wraps them both in its comforting press, while Bucky sighs in his half-sleep and lets him.

Steve is just about to drift off when Bucky suddenly speaks, slurring his words just a little. “Toni asked me to tell you that we could use his new weapon, also.” 

“Lucky me,” Steve says. “What is this weapon he keeps going on about? When I ran into him in the stables he was talking to his cart like it was some troublesome child.” Steve rethinks that, given the dwarf’s horrified gasp and accusations of spying the moment they came across one another. “...Or perhaps a lover.” 

“Don’t know,” Bucky admits. His face is pressed into Steve’s chest, the length of his body held against Steve’s side. The blankets nearly reach all the way up to his softly lidded eyes. It’s fascinating just to see him like this, at rest, and Steve forgets what he’s asking for a moment until Bucky starts again. “Although. What better way to disrupt a wizard’s careful planning than a little dwarvish chaos?”

Eventually, the rising sun interrupts their happy respite, the world around them going dusky grey. The fall weather is turning in earnest now, with heavy fog rolling down into the city from the White Hills each morning. 

Steve and Bucky dress quickly, Steve’s mind already on their current situation. Ultron the Blue, subverting Prince Imrahil’s authority over the Swan Knights. Lowly orcs acting on his orders to first capture Rammas Echor’s North Gate, then lay in wait to ambush Steve’s party. Higher ranking fighting Uruk-hai gathering in numbers, readying themselves to attack key strategic positions along the main roads north and south. The mysterious new palantír, and a mission to install it in Osgiliath. Finally, there’s Vision the Blue, who in Steve’s estimation could be just as easily a friend as a foe.

“And then, there’s the spi— _Natasha_ ,” Steve concludes, glancing at Clinton with a nod. They are once again seated around the large table in the banquet hall after Steve’s report. The dwarf had brought out the ripe cheese and a half dozen rounds of crusty bread, but even he doesn’t seem too interested in the food after they all arrive. Steve had figured this exercise would spark some conversation, sharing insights from other points of view, or possible tactics. So far, everyone has remained silent, reserved, as if still stung from the argument the night before. 

“Suggestions?” Steve deliberately asks, and Clinton blinks in surprise. That’s not altogether fair. Surely ( _maybe?_ ) Steve has asked others in his pathfinder troupe for opinions on strategy before.

Sam looks between Rhodirion, Antonius, and then to the other humans. When he realizes no one is going to answer, he speaks up. “I could send Redwing to Vision with news,” he says. “He has no problem scouting marks near Hardwallow from here. Having a wizard on our side to face another wizard squares our chances.”

Steve nods. He wants to say that they have no way of knowing that Vision is on their side, but now isn’t the time for doubts. “Good thinking.”

Sam quickly opens the herald’s kit he keeps on his belt. Inside is a small silver note case, from which he extracts a stick of graphite. He writes a note on a slip of paper so thin that by the time he’s done rolling it into the tiny metal tube that fits on Redwing’s leg it’s no larger than a pin. Sam leaves the hall with Redwing on his shoulder, clucking softly under his breath, and Steve continues.

“Now, we need to find a… diplomatic way to reach the Citadel. We’ll be too threatening if we march along the streets. The Swan Knights wouldn’t let us through, I’m sure of it.” 

“My husband works in the house of healing,” Melinda speaks up, and Steve is momentarily taken aback. She is Phillip’s second in command, a brilliant tactician and so stoic that Steve never considered she might have a domestic life outside of the army. Truly, he can’t picture it. “Since it’s on the level directly below The Citadel, we could get a lot closer to Ultron.”

“Good,” Steve says, already thinking about the towering height of the city’s massive final tier. It wouldn’t be possible to scale the wall from the street below, but like she said, they could get close.

“My brother has a smithy on Cartwright’s Street,” Mac offers. “The street above this one.” 

“Perfect,” Steve nods. “Closing the gap. Anyone else?”

“I attend lessons at the academy!” Peter exclaims.

Steve doesn’t react right away, already surprised that Peter had spoken up at all. He’s so young, the thought hadn’t occurred to Steve to include him directly in the conversation. “Which academy?” Steve asks.

Peter deflates, his nerves obviously overcoming his excitement to participate. “The. Um, the military academy… The one on Center Heights.” 

“Ah,” Steve says, thinking that after all this is over, he’ll have to put in a good word for Peter. Gondor’s military academy is another public works project, meant for citizens who pledge a lifetime career to defending the realm. In truth, it also acts as a stopgap, ensuring the decimated army can recover some semblance of experience after the War of the Ring. While the elderly linger, the experienced young fighters have mostly fallen in battle, and the _very_ young—like Peter—are left to fill their boots. It’s not something that the King’s court speaks of, this lack of leadership, but Steve is familiar with the challenges the military faces. He helped design the school himself.

“I usually spend time studying the archives at the academy,” Phillip offers, and when Melinda looks at him with surprise, Steve feels better that he’s not the only one learning about his teammates. “What? I like history. It’s fascinating what you can learn about strategy from the records of past encounters.” 

“So we have a map of excuses to climb the city…” Steve comes back around to Clinton, and asks again. “And then there’s Natasha. Do you expect her to return soon?” 

Clinton says, “Give her another few minutes.” 

The dwarf blows out a disgusted breath. “And my lady?” He tersely reminds them all. “What about it, elf?” 

Steve grits his teeth. It’s not cute at all when anyone other than Bucky calls him ‘elf’, but he isn’t going to reject the ‘dwarvish chaos’ now. “Bring the cart.” 

Antonius gives a prim nod, as if he had expected no less, but Rhodirion places a cautious hand on his broad shoulder. “Toni,” he says, and his next words fade as Steve hears someone enter the manor. He hadn’t expected the spider to make herself so known, and he catches Bucky’s eye as Rhodirion continues arguing with the dwarf. “We’re under strict orders…” 

“Pah!” Toni waves him aside. “If Maria isn’t going to show her face after we’ve been waiting—”

“You called?” Maria says. She’s clad in ceremonial armor worn for formal duties, her silver plate glittering in the light from the hall’s tall windows, cape a bright sash of cerulian with stars picked out of silver thread across her shoulders. Her helmet’s sweeping wings crest high above her brow in gleaming gold. Then a black shadow slips out from behind her, and the spider finds her way to Clinton’s side.

“ _Commander_ ,” Phillip says, leaning back in his chair. “Good to see you again.” 

“Phillip,” she says, nodding at him in acknowledgement. Steve suspects there’s history here, but doesn’t ask. Judging from the braids on her shoulder, he sees that Maria is much more than a knight errant. She holds one of the highest honors of Dol Amroth’s army, royalty among an army already rich with nobility. She turns grimly to Steve, and after a quick glance at Bucky, continues. “I found no one who will admit it, but Prince Imrahil is missing. None of my own men seem concerned, all are blindly trusting this _Ultron the Blue_. They seem particularly paranoid that someone named Victor, dressed in the mannar of the Far East, will infiltrate the city.” She says this last bit with a knowing lift of her eyebrows and a tired sigh.

“Victor is a name given by Vision the Blue,” Bucky explains to Steve, then to Maria continues, “I gave him the palantír in order to help draw Ultron’s eye.” 

“Ah, he speaks,” Maria exclaims with a happy smile. “It’s good to see you’ve been making some more friends.” 

Bucky coughs, because he clearly has no idea what to say to that. Apparently satisfied that she’s embarrassed him enough, Maria looks back to Steve.

“Natasha tells me you’d be the one with the plan.”

The way Maria slots into the conversation so effortlessly reminds Steve of his first allied mission so long ago. Back then, the Howling Commandos had relied on team strategy, cohesion, and mutual respect to disable signal towers along the Ephel Dúath. Together, they had cut a path for the armies of elves and men to circle behind Sauron’s dark tower and win an entire age of peace. How could he have forgotten that’s what it took? 

Steve waits for Maria to take a seat next to Bucky before he continues. “We have a route to The Citadel that won’t draw every Swan Knight in the city down on our heads,” Steve explains, then has to admit defeat. “That’s pretty much it.” 

Maria nods. “Good enough. I can get us out the front door at least.” 

“And when we face the wizard?” Bucky asks. 

“Leave that to us,” Maria says. “Trust me. If Ultron has done something to my Lord Imrahil, he will have a lot more than just us to worry about.” 

With Maria as her chaperone, Melinda is the first to leave the Old Guest House with the excuse of visiting her husband in the house of healing. The rest of them will wait for Maria’s return, staggering their trips in a slow trickle between guard shifts. It’s a tedious plan, but the only way to appear harmless, separated, going through the motions of general disinterest in Ultron’s affairs. By dusk, Steve has his armor packed up on Turma’s back, and once it’s finally his turn to head out, leads his horse through the city streets, unarmed. He’d be more worried if Bucky weren’t right there beside him, discreetly staying in Turma’s broad shadow. 

Phillip and Peter are in his group, traveling together under the excuse of ascending the city to the military academy. All the streets slope gently upwards as they wrap around the mountain’s spur. They remain quiet as they pass open market stalls, avoid the seemingly unsupervised crowds of young children that burst out of their path like flocks of startled birds. Faster cart traffic hurries past them in the opposite direction, towards the dense residential areas north of the markets.

Steve tries to catch sight of Bucky from the corner of his eye as they follow the wide, rambling Rath Celerdain, and feels a shiver of worry that once again, he might lose his lover and be forced to face an immortal future alone.

Bucky walks like a shadow beside him, utterly silent, with his hood raised and mask hiding his face. Steve wishes he wouldn’t resort to the mask since it makes him look like a villain, but after Bucky effortlessly steps aside for a pair of women hauling milk jugs, or goes completely ignored by passing guards, Steve realizes that Bucky’s ability to slip around the human’s notice is now as natural for Bucky as breathing. They simply don’t see him, tucked into every shadow, moving with soft padded boots through their midst like a cat. Steve’s only so aware of him because of his own fine senses and, well, it’s _Bucky_.

Even as he goes wholly unnoticed, Bucky himself is clearly hypervigilant. His eyes dart back and forth as he moves around the other humans, who seem to break around him without notice, as a river parts around a stone. Despite looking prepared to spring into action, coiled tight with anxious energy, his body also appears folded in at one corner, as if he were trying to hide his armless shoulder within his tattered black cloak. It makes him look smaller, and perhaps this is how he avoids the other human’s notice so completely. 

Steve watches Bucky take note of obstacles and threats, like city guards making their way down the street, or the cart pulled over where a small crowd has gathered to help the driver repair a wheel. Bucky startles backward at the sound of swords clacking together, even though it’s just a pair of children, waging war with wooden swords as their mother shouts a warning to stay clear of the road. A dog barks at a flock of crows who don’t bother moving from their perch along a roof beam, and Bucky slips to Turma’s opposite side. 

None of it is extraordinary in any human city, and Steve wonders at the sort of danger Bucky perceives from such innocuous signs of simple humanity. Perhaps this is what Bucky had meant when he said it was exhausting to be “alive” all the time. Though, after last night Steve isn’t sure Bucky still experiences human exhaustion. Does he even take hurts as a mortal might? Turma nuzzles Steve’s shoulder, bumping into his suede tunic with her soft nose. He pets her gently, reminding his friend that he’s still being cautious.

“She doesn’t trust me,” Bucky says in Quenya, with just enough breath that only Steve could be the one to hear him. “Does she.” 

“You might need another apple or two,” Steve answers, and Turma gives a low grumble before she sighs, then startles a step sideways when Bucky bursts out laughing. 

Steve laughs before he can help it, then coughs in the absolute worst attempt to cover it up when a mounted guard glances their way. She isn’t a member of the Swan Knights, just a simple foot soldier going about her duties, but it’s best to maintain a low profile regardless. Maybe Bucky is right to be so paranoid.

They make it through the first series of gates to the second tier of the city, and as they pass a row of smithies along Cartwright Street, manage to pick up another member of their party. Mac doesn’t say a word as he carries one large hammer against his broad shoulder. Without his light leather armor covering the bulk of his thick biceps, he fits the image of a blacksmith and follows in silence behind Peter and Phillip. 

Through another gate and up another tier, they pick up Clinton and—Steve assumes—Natasha. Clinton at least had stopped to visit his parents, who were apparently horse trainers for Gondor’s armies, settling down in Minas Tirith from Rohan after the war wiped out their village. Steve will have to ask him about that one day, but suspects for now he’ll simply be grateful for the man’s quiet spider-friend who likely trails at a safe distance behind (or perhaps above?) them.

Next is Rhodirion and Antonius, whose laden cart grinds alongside Turma’s gentle gate. The dwarf whistles loudly as the sun sets, then hums a mournful tune in the manner of his own people. It’s lovely, like nothing Steve has heard, too deep and bassy to be beautiful to elvish tastes, but moving nonetheless. That’s about when Steve notices Bucky has slipped away completely. Apparently, he prefers complete anonymity and now their group is large enough to become conspicuous as evening settles over the city.

Last of all, they pass the house of healing where Melinda, wearing a dress, carries a bundle of white flowers in her arms and falls into step beside Phillip. This last tier has a narrower street than the lower, more crowded tiers. The few residences are for Minas Tirith’s council members, public servants of the king, several archival libraries, and the main branch of Gondor’s bank. As the sun sets, the crowds along the streets of these more utilitarian districts grow sparse, and the group spreads further apart to appear less like a gathered force of mercenaries. 

Sam, still in his herald’s livery, has gone up ahead to discuss an urgent message for Prince Imrahil from Osgiliath. It obviously won’t get him through the doors, but can distract the Swan Knights that have taken up the guard there long enough for the others to arrive. 

Perhaps it’s the nearness of their victory that makes Steve so foolishly hopeful that they’ll reach The Citadel without incident. The moment he rounds the corner of a retainer’s vestibule, Maria at his side, followed by Phillip, Melinda, Mac, Peter, and Antonius and Rhodirion in their cart, they come face-to-face with Captain Thaddeus ‘The Thunderbolt’ and half a dozen armed and armored knights. Sam stands before them, hands raised in defeat.

“Maria?” Thaddeus blurts out. His armor is more decorative than when he had ridden out to meet them at Rammas Echor, glowing red in the low light of the setting sun. Somehow it makes him look older, worn out, and his mustache practically bristles with indignation. “I suspected these...these _outsiders_ to be susceptible to the evil wizard’s corruption, but you?”

“Wizard?” Maria says, incredulous. “What wizard? I am here to seek out Prince Imrahil, and you have no authority to stop me.” 

“Prince Imrahil has traveled north,” Thaddeus insists, looking awfully proud of himself for supposedly putting Maria in her place. “He’s gone to meet King Elessar on the field of battle to liberate our sister kingdom.” 

“Prince Imrahil has been held captive by Ultron the blue these many weeks,” Maria says, her voice strong and unwavering. The knight holding a sword to Sam’s back shoots a look to Captain Thaddeus in alarm, and she continues. “And I can prove it.” 


	13. Minas Tirith - Return to the Citadel

_Map from The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) Paperback – April 10, 2001 by Karen Wynn Fonstad_

* * *

Natasha had taken a chance to slip away somewhere along the fifth tier of the city, so named Evenstar Street for the House of Healing near the top which Lady Arwen apparently helped restore the sick and wounded by war’s end. Bucky decides to follow soon after, without a word to Steve.

The spider clearly prefers sticking to high corners than open paths or exposed rooftops. She manages to climb walls as if her own weight is meaningless, her body pressed flat, gliding over the stone like ink over waxed parchment. Bucky stays closer to the ground, shadow stepping across open streets and tucking into the cool darkness beneath stairways, along balconies, or even in the gaps between groups of inattentive civilians. He’s been a ghost for so long that it comes naturally in large crowds. Near the top of the city he has to finally join Natasha on the rooftops. The shadows grow long, and the crowds thin until only Steve and this party of mismatched soldiers and one dwarvish scholar remain in the wide lane.

“The wizard is dangerous,” Natasha quietly tells him, from her perch in the crook of a window. “The whole city is his. Saruman never accomplished this. _Sauron_ never accomplished this.”

“Ultron’s path was paved by both,” Bucky answers. “The fear of Saruman the White painted a specter of an evil wizard for Ultron to use in his propaganda. The power vacuum from Sauron’s defeat has unleashed chaos among the evil races. New, unasked for freedom feels like its own sort of slavery when one doesn’t know what to do with it…”

The spider doesn’t respond right away, and simply goes back to watching the scene below. Finally, she speaks up. “This is why we must find a purpose. An invention, an archer,” she lists off, nodding towards Toni’s cart first, then to Clinton. “Or an elvish lover.”

“Careful,” Bucky warns her, but she goes back to watching the street with a shrug, clearly knowing that she is right. Steve is Bucky’s purpose. Is that so wrong? Bucky crouches beside her on the stone balcony of a retainer’s vestibule, a small sort of gate-house that guards are able to use throughout their duties, except tall as a tower next to the large gates leading to The Citadel. Below, Bucky spots the herald, and shakes his head when the Swan Knights draw swords on him.

Steve’s group is stopped by the Swan Knight captain who had escorted them from Rammas Echor, and Bucky pulls a cluster of throwing knives from his belt. He could easily strike several knights from this height, then draw his main weapon on his way down. Fighting one-handed requires a little more planning, but he finds it less troublesome than he had expected.

The Swan Knights threaten the herald, and Maria confronts the captain. “Prince Imrahil has been held captive by Ultron the blue these many weeks,” she says. Bucky has heard Maria take the tone of unquestionable authority before, when they defended Henneth Annûn, and again, when they separated at Osgiliath. “And I can prove it.”

This seems to do the trick. Bucky knows of the famed Swan Knights and their devotion to their prince. Each one is nobility in their own right, lords from Dol Amroth who fervently believe in leading from the front, taking up arms to defend their liege and lands. For someone as high ranking as Maria to tell them Prince Imrahil is in danger, any Swan Knight would do what they could to prove the statement false, or die in the attempt to save him. To react in any other manner would be treason in their eyes.

“She is dangerous also,” Natasha observes, taking one last look at the gathering to ensure her archer is safe before gazing higher up the tower to search for her next perch.

“I like her,” Bucky says, following.

“Me too.”

Despite Maria’s strategy, Steve’s group stalls at the gates. The dwarf’s unmistakable voice carries even to the rooftops as he bellows out his indignation that his cart is unable to be drawn through the tunnel to the uppermost courtyard and must remain at the stables just before it. Apparently, he finds the whole point of accessibility to be preposterous, if stairs are required to reach the seat of government for the capital of Gondor. It’s not ideal that the group splits—Toni staying behind with Rhodirion while Steve and the others continue on—but it can’t be helped. Toni won’t leave the cart and Rhodirion won’t leave Toni. The conflict gives Natasha and Bucky the time they need to reach the final obstacle.

The wall leading to The Citadel is not like the retaining walls of the ones below it. Though still standing at one hundred feet high like the others, it’s broken down the middle by the angular cliff of the mountain’s original skeleton, like the keel of a great ship cresting above the lower levels. The natural stone is even easier to scale than the artfully hewn blocks of the other walls, but at the top, rather than the houses, gardens, or the soft shadows of city structures to hide within, the wall simply ends at a wide, flat deck. At its heart grows the White Tree, now in full bloom in the Court of the Fountain despite the early winter chill, and beyond that, towards the shoulder that connects the city to the mountain strongholds, is the White Tower of Ecthelion.

“You go,” Natasha says. Her bright red curls scramble over her shoulders in the wind as she tosses her head to urge him up past her. They’ve managed to wedge themselves into a rough cranny just over the edge, in a crook where the man made wall meets the raw stone of the mountain. At this altitude, frigid gales whip across the rock in torrents. Natasha takes another look up, her eyes going narrow. “I’ll come if I’m needed,” she tells him.

Bucky understands. With his ability to shadow step, he can cross the Citadel’s bright white stone floor without being seen by the Guards standing vigilant around the Court of the Fountain. However, he’ll have to return to the wraith world, and stay hidden there for much longer than he had allowed himself to while he hunted orcs at Rammas Echor. It’s the only way to remain completely invisible as he awaits his opening. Anything less, and the wizard will surely detect him. He’s not sure how long whatever remains of his soul can hold its breath in the shadow realm, but he can’t endure Steve remaining out of his sight. Without a second thought, he vaults over the edge and into the wraith world, breathing out a frosty cloud as it pulls him into its shadowy embrace. Natasha will make her own way to Clinton, if she sees the need to.

Turma apparently had no trouble taking the stairs alongside the others, and soon the group emerges from the cowled vestibule that leads up from the tunnel. Bucky watches from his place beneath the sprawling branches of the White Tree, right in the middle of the four guards in their fine, white feathered helmets, unaware of his presence. There’s whispers around him, a strange, creeping stillness that shies away from his Gondolin knives, but keeps careful watch like the windows of an old ruin. Bucky tries to ignore it, to deny the wraith world his attention in order to defer his penance a little longer.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” says the Swan Knight captain, marching ahead of the group as a man whose honor depends on what happens next. “I’m sure of it. Lord Ultron would never—”

“Since when were wizards considered lords?” Steve cuts in, then glances away quickly when Maria shoots him a dangerous look. Apparently, his usual brass isn’t part of their plan, but when Steve’s line of sight falls on the White Tree, he comes to an abrupt halt. Bucky holds his breath when their eyes lock. The shock of being seen while he’s so cloaked in shadow, even for an instant, sends a confusing swirl of panic and delight through him. If Steve’s elvish sight can perceive him even as he touches the realm of formless wraiths, perhaps he is not so cursed after all? Or perhaps, his physical coupling with Steve the night before had somehow dragged the elf closer to the wraith world…

It’s not possible. Even now Steve glows as bright as ever beside his mortal companions. Bucky swallows his fears and hopes alike to focus on the mission at hand as Turma tugs on her reigns and Steve continues forward, barely missing a step.

The moment the Swan Knight captain places one foot on the sweeping step around the base of the Tower of Ecthelion, the great double doors fly open and the entire group halts in place. There, framed in the open doorway, stands Ultron the Blue.

Unlike Saruman or Gandalf, this wizard doesn’t appear at all like an unassuming, elderly man. His armor is dark and strange, and Bucky clenches his jaw when he notices the red jewel on the wizard’s staff, gazing down at the others from its metal perch like Sauron’s eye. Even surrounded by knights, Ultron looks like an aberration, more metal than man. The flared outline of his helmet glows red in the light of the setting sun, giving the macabre impression of a bloody grin.

“Ah. Sedryn Amathion, the Shield Son of Forlindon,” Ultron says, and plants the butt of his staff on the top step. The Swan Knight captain takes a step down, realizing he’s being completely overlooked for the time being. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon after such a spectacular failure at Osgiliath.”

Bucky’s hand tightens around the hilt of his knife, but doesn’t draw. Their strategy relies on him going unnoticed until the last possible moment. Ultron doesn’t know Bucky is with Steve’s group, and the wizard would likely not know how to counter Bucky’s dark abilities immediately. At least, that’s the hope. They must cling to any advantage they have, since they know so very little about Ultron’s own plans, his resources, or abilities.

Steve doesn’t say anything, and instead folds his arms across his broad chest with a glance at Maria.

“Wizard,” she says. “I, Commander Maria of Dol Amroth, knight-errant in agency to King Elessar II, demand to see Prince Imrahil. Bring him forth!”

The laugh that escapes from that terrible helmet is husky and bored. Ultron is apparently just as amused as if he had just been threatened by a toddler.

“Bring him forth, wizard!” Maria demands again, her hand going to the hilt of her sword.

Ultron cocks his head to one side as a breeze tugs his red cape open. “I find it interesting that you mortals cling so hard to your notions of bloodlines. Pedigrees. _Royalty_ ,” he adds with a sneer. “All this loyalty to a man, just for being born. It was the same in the East. Entire kingdoms, so easy to manipulate with superstition and fear. So easy to _destroy_.”

The Swan Knight captain draws his sword, but Ultron just laughs again. With a mere wave of the wizard’s staff, the knight topples off to one side. His armor crashes into the stone, sword spinning out of his hand. The rest attack, all at once.

Maria is the first to fall, thrown off her feet like the captain before her. Steve yanks his shield from Turma’s saddle, and drops to his knees when the same invisible force from Ultron’s staff breaks against him with a hard metal clang. The humans send a volley of arrows to Ultron’s position, but he moves so fast that his image seems to flicker, only to reappear closer to Steve in order to knock him aside with a heavy strike of his staff.

Bucky grinds his teeth, still only able to watch the others fight, as the shadows leap and swirl around him, like a vortex slowly gathering overhead. He’ll know his opening when he sees it, still be able to emerge from the wraith world as always. For now, he holds his trusty knife at the ready and prays that Steve won’t get himself killed. The shadows shift again, the whispers taking shape, and he hears the words, _he will._

The guards posted around the Court of the Fountain shift uncomfortably as they watch, trapped by their sworn duty is to protect the White Tree at all costs. Very little could draw them away, but merely watching the chaos erupt only scant meters away must be a terrible frustration. Still, they seem to bear it with more dignity than Bucky. He’s practically ready to chew through nails as he sees Maria recover, only to be knocked aside once more.

Then the herald takes aim with a crossbow, and when Ultron knocks the bolt out of the air with his staff, an arrow from Steve’s pathfinder troupe makes it through his defenses. It clinks against his armor and spins harmlessly away, but he whirls around at the indignity of being touched.

“Enough!” Ultron shouts, then makes a great, sweeping arc with his staff. The jewel flares, painting a red streak in front of him, and Steve is thrown clear past Bucky, tumbling into the grass below the White Tree. The shadows in the wraith world dance away from Steve’s elvish life force, the light that travels with him and Rhodirion both through the grace of their people.

Ultron is shouting now, wielding his staff like a lightning rod. “I’m through with _elves_ , through with _men_ ,” he adds, striking the humans aside all at once, then points his rod directly at Bucky. “And through with half-dead Dúnedain lurking in the shadows!”

The wraith world answers, flaring up around Bucky in a sucking tidal wave, grasping hungrily at his ankles. They mean to pin him in place! Bucky locks his gaze on Steve as the elf recovers, and dives towards him, bursting free from the wraith world just in time to dodge whatever magic Ultron flung at him. The wizard’s magic breaks against the flagstones at the base of the White Tree, kicking up a spray of dust. Bucky breaks through the cloud of chipped stone and thrown dirt, sprints forward, skids sideways to avoid another attack, then hurls his knife through the air. Ultron knocks the blade aside with ease, but that hadn’t been Bucky’s true attack. After a feint to Ultron’s left, Bucky draws his second knife, calling on the wraith world once more. Ice comes lancing forth, dragged sparkling from that dark place with a shriek of resistance. Ultron is forced to retreat a step, then another, as the ice builds and builds with spinning blades, crystalline structures slicing forward even as it struggles against Bucky’s command.

It’s cold and it hurts to draw this much from the wraith world, but Bucky doesn’t stop. He leaps over curving frost just as his first wave of ice starts to crumble. Now, close enough to strike, Bucky tosses his second knife, hilt-over-blade, to reposition it in his fist. He ducks beneath Ultron’s defensive swing, and cuts into his armor, the Gondolin steel slicing across the chestplate. The blade bites deep, but not deep enough. Ultron growls, slams his staff down once more, and a dome of red light clears an entire circle around him, throwing Bucky off his feet and reducing the remaining ice structures to a fine mist.

“Idiots!” Ultron hisses, glaring at Clinton as his arrows fizzle into ash the moment they strike the red dome of light. “Children! Elves and men, dwarves and halflings. You’re nothing without our influence. Nothing without our wisdom! You had the most powerful objects in Middle-earth, and you used them as _peep-holes_.”

Ultron’s staff flares again, and the circle of his powerful spell expands, engulfing more ground. Steve hoists the unconscious Swan Knight captain over his shoulders, and Maria helps Phillip out of its range. Peter, the youngest of Steve’s pathfinders, scrabbles backward on his hands into the grass surrounding the court of the fountain, and the guards there block his path.

Bucky rushes to Steve’s side, and helps him lower the Swan Knight captain to the ground. He isn’t sure what to do next, and they have to take another step back or else risk being consumed by whatever Ultron is doing. Their swords and arrows can’t even get close to the wizard at this point.

“This is going badly,” Bucky says.

“You don’t say,” Steve answers, and reaches into his shirt to draw out a long, silver chain. At the end of it sparkles the jewel that normally adorns his breastplate. “Look away,” he warns, then reverently whispers in Quenya to the jewel. “ _Aiya Eärendil elenion ancali—”_

Bucky shuts his eyes, but instead of the familiar, burning white light of the jewel being called forth, red fire streaks through the sky from above them. It strikes them both, a booming sound like thunder rattling Bucky down to his bones. It happens so quickly that it takes a few, confusing seconds for Bucky to realize that they had both been thrown to the ground. He can smell something smoldering, and a sharp, pungent taste like lightning burns the inside of his mouth.

Steve clutches at his own wrist, his face straining against pain. His palm is raw and blistered—the scent Bucky had caught being Steve’s own scorched flesh—and the Star of Eärendil has been reduced to a few blackened shards. Starlight leaks between Steve’s shaking fingers like blood. Bucky quickly gathers up Steve’s wounded hand and props him against Bucky’s uneven side. Ultron’s laughter is more manic now, and his barrier continues to roar with strength around him. Soon, it will surely engulf the entire court. They’ll have to retreat to the tunnels and the levels below.

“This is going _very_ badly,” Steve wheezes out, and Bucky nearly laughs. “Did you see it?” Steve continues, and glances up towards the overwhelming height of the Tower of Ecthelion. “He’s drawing his power down. There’s a palantír up there, in a hidden room. King Elessar is the only one able to use it.”

“And Prince Imrahil,” Maria gasps. She’s resting on one knee beside the captain, propping up her weight on her sword. “The spider said he was atop the city, and the tower is the highest point.”

“We can’t get to it,” Steve says. “We can’t get anywhere _near_ it.”

 _We can_ , the wraiths whisper to Bucky, and he clutches Steve closer against himself.

As the three gaze upward, Bucky catches sight of a familiar silhouette against the glittering stars above them. A falcon on the wing swoops around the top of the Tower of Ecthelion and releases a sharp cry, as if calling for their attention. That’s when Bucky spots Natasha, a smudge of darkness against the bright white stone of the tower itself. She’s already close to the topmost window, working her way up the spindle like ash on the wind.

“We need to keep him distracted,” Steve says. He shakes his hand as if the terrible wound is merely a speck of dirt, then grabs his sword without even flinching.

“What are you doing?” Bucky says. “You can’t possibly—”

Steve lunges ahead, leading with his shield. It sparks against Ultron’s barrier, which gives just enough to grapple with the elvish relic. Steve grits his teeth and pushes on, red lightning snapping and fizzing around him.

“Damn you,” Bucky mutters to himself, then drives his knife into the barrier beside his lover’s shield. Bucky closes his eyes against the shrieking energy that bursts forth, and leans into the intangible resistance of Ultron’s magic. The barrier doesn’t budge, and he can feel the energy building against him. He holds his breath and nearly stumbles forward when the wraith world welcomes him back, counter-acting Ultron’s magic with its own, strange emptiness. Bucky isn’t even sure he had come voluntarily into shadow this time, but as the resistance builds he feels the shadow itself struggling to hold against Ultron’s spell. Sensing a sliver of hope, a chink in that strange barrier between worlds, Bucky stabs his knife forward and prays. Blue hoarfrost crusts over the dome, crackling apart and reforming as Bucky forces the inner conduit to the wraith world open wider and wider. The shadow starts to tumble through him, around him, until he is no longer sure if he is controlling it or lost within the blurred, ghostly realm. Finally, it wants him to stop, to leave and never come back. Bucky pushes on.

“Bucky!”

Someone shouts his name. Is it Steve? Bucky slips forward another step, Ultron’s barrier crackling over his skin. Bucky can see the wizard now, and in the shadow of that dark helm he spots red eyes, narrowed with fury and a hint of fear. Ultron can’t summon his lightning down within his own barrier, and Bucky takes more ground, step by step, carrying the purest of shadows with him. His lungs crackle with ice, his breath a lump of frozen water in his chest. Even the tears in his eyes start to crust over.

The frozen energy from the wraith world rushes out of him like his own lifeblood, spurting from an ancient wound in the center of his chest, rejecting him as it should have done all those centuries ago. Now it’s true death and silence and the promise of an end to his torment—something Bucky realizes he’s desired for long enough. Suddenly, he wonders why he has fought so hard against making this leap, or why the wraith world had seemed so dark before, so frightening.

Bucky controls it entirely now, and Ultron takes another step back, apparently realizing it as well.

“Bucky, stop!” Steve cries. “You’ll tear yourself apart!”

Bucky can’t stop. He’s so close. The shadows are now his servants. The wraith world is now his domain. Only a few feet away from Ultron now. His knife glows red, soaking up the magic surrounding him, as hungry for vengeance as he is.

“Pallando!” Comes a bellowing voice, so strong that cuts through the roar of magic. “Your spell has ended!”

A pulse of energy hits Bucky in the back. From there, a golden ripple rushes through him and outward, streaking across the courtyard until it reaches the steps of the tower and strikes Ultron. There’s a horrible squeal like twisting metal, and the dome around him shivers, like a vibration of sound running through fine glass. Ultron’s spell comes undone with a burst of sparkling, broken power. Bucky falls to his knees, breathless and alive. The wraith world drops from his shoulders like a heavy cloak and Bucky gasps in the warm air of the mortal world once again. Everything around him is all at once too bright and too real, blinding and confusing.

Ultron draws his attention with another, ugly laugh. “Alatar!” He says, lifting both arms up as if in greeting. “Good to see you, brother! I hope you have come to return what you have stolen from me…”

Vision nods to the Guards of the Fountain, his colorful robes bright under the moon’s cool glow. He wears a bright yellow cape, and his staff matches Ultron’s with a jewel glowing just as red. “The palantíri were gifted to _men_ ,” Vision explains, stopping beside Bucky just short of the tower’s lower steps. “It matters not how they use them.”

“It matters n— _It matters not?_ ” Ultron sputters, stomping forward with rage. “In the East it was all that matters! In the East it was how we kept Sauron’s allies from joining the war, how we kept order! This is why I left you behind, brother. _The Vision of the East_ , those primitives called you? Your name is nothing but pathetic irony, you blind old fool!”

Ultron raises his staff and Bucky prepares to brace against another attack. Then the wizard jerks to a sudden halt. He staggers half a step before catching himself, and the long clawed fingers of massive spider legs withdraw from behind him as he turns to see Natasha’s deadly smile.

“Whose blind now?” Vision asks, without a hint of irony.

“Hungry,” Natasha says, her grin full of teeth, as a long blade retracts into her vambrace. She steps back, and there beside her, slumped against the wall of the Tower of Ecthelion, is the prone form of a man wearing the bright blue heraldry of Dol Amroth.

“Your highness!” Maria cries out.

“ _You_ ,” Ultron growls, taking a shaking step towards Natasha, and stumbles from the wound she left in his back. She shrinks from him, but not from fear. She is coiling down low, as if to strike again. “Diminished spawn of the monstrous, bloated Ungoliant. You _dare_ to— ”

Ultron staggers again. This time because an arrow thunks into the space between his backplate and the steel faulds above his hips, which are protected by chain link rather than impenetrable plate. Ultron glances down at the arrow shaft, then across the courtyard at Clinton, who already has a second arrow knocked.

“Pest,” Ultron says, and another deadly bolt streaks out of the sky.

For Bucky, time practically stands still as Steve dives for the archer. He envelopes Clinton in his arms, turning his shield to block the deadly attack. This attack had disintegrated an heirloom of Galadriel, an amulet strong enough to keep the forces of darkness at bay, to call down the power of the stars. Bucky cries out in helpless fury as Ultron’s bolt consumes Steve and Clinton both. “No!”

“Now!” Vision orders.

From behind the cowled vestibule, Antonius, son of Stark, pivots outward. He drops to one knee, hoisting something onto his broad shoulder. It looks like a miniature battering ram, with a perpendicular handle on one end. It’s front is carved in the likeness of a red dragon, maw open and teeth bared. Directly behind him is Rhordirion, hand braced against the opposite shoulder.

“Ten more degrees, Toni,” he says.

“Aye, aye…” Toni confirms, then grins madly. “Taste Smaug’s Revenge, you wizard bastard!”

Ultron apparently doesn’t know what to make of the newcomer, and sputters out an undignified, “ _What?_ ”

The dragon head screams to life, fire crackling from behind on a fuse before it rockets forward. It spins in a seemingly wild path, leaving a spiral of smoke in its wake. Toni’s aim is true, and the entire court blooms with light the moment it strikes Ultron. A roaring explosion engulfs the wizard with the kind of noise that one feels more than hears, shaking the very stones of Minas Tirith beneath their feet.

Through the unnatural stillness and unbalanced deafness that follows, the only thing Bucky can actually make out is Toni’s wild laugher, booming out in waves of joy.

Bucky coughs to clear his lungs, even as pieces of Ultron’s armor clatter to the white stone, trailing streamers of smoke. There’s nothing left of the blue wizard, as if his flesh and blood had never existed.

“Steve?” Bucky coughs again, and stumbles to where he saw Steve fall. Natasha is already there, holding the archer in her arms, and Steve is struggling out from beneath the pieces of his shattered shield. Bucky runs to him. “Steve!”

“I’m alright,” Steve says, coughs, and fails to get to his feet. “I’m not hurt.”

All around them, the others seem to be recovering. The four humans with Steve’s pathfinder troupe, Maria and the captain of the Swan Knights. Vision kneels over the man that must be Imrahil, getting the prince to his feet. The only ones still flat on their asses are Steve and Clinton.

“Horse shit,” Bucky spits out, and offers him a hand. He’s so mad that even the wraith world seems to shrink away from his fury. “You arrogant, reckless, suicidally brave— _hacca!_ ”

Steve laughs in his face, then collapses, surrendering to Bucky arms.

 

**EPILOGUE: Rivendell**

Steve glances up from his canvas, only to find that once again, his model has moved.

“Bucky—”

“I can’t help it,” Bucky gusts out, leaning heavily back into the swan chaise where Steve had carefully positioned him. The wall behind the chaise is open, giving way to a view of the hanging gardens along the valley walls. At this time of year, the morning sun breaks in clear golden beams across their small chambers, and the sheer curtains drift lazily in a sweet scented breeze. Ideal conditions for Steve to sketch his lover in adoring detail, if the bastard would just stop fidgeting.

Bucky’s mithril arm catches the light brilliantly, and he turns it over again, setting the etched scrollwork to sparkling. His smile is slight, still somewhat shy as if he is unsure it’s permitted to enjoy the beautiful new limb. “It’s… it’s just a masterpiece, is all.”

Steve puts his graphite stick away. It’ll be an age before he’s able to finish anything with Bucky’s restlessness, but for now the artwork is unimportant. Bucky’s tentative happiness needs careful nurturing, and Steve wants to be there for him. For both the sweetness of these gentle moments as well as the darkness of Bucky’s worst nights.

“Lord Elrond was generous to open the forges of Rivendell for Toni’s project,” Steve says, crossing the small rug between his easel and the chaise. He takes a seat at Bucky’s feet, planning to feign a pout, but is quickly defeated by the charm of Bucky’s budding delight. “You know, if the dwarf ever learns that you admitted it’s a masterpiece, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

Steve is teasing, but Bucky’s smile is suddenly gone. “Lord Elrond has been generous in more ways that simply opening his forge,” he says, rolling his silver knuckles again, letting his new fingers play in the fine brocade silk of his robe. “His library, his gardens, even these chambers…”

“Our chambers,” Steve corrects. He doesn’t know how else to make Bucky feel at home here. These are the same chambers he had reserved for them both. The same rooms which had once been so lonely, where Steve had struggled to piece his own heart back together in after Bucky’s death, and failed. “These are _our_ chambers, Buck.”

“Mmm,” Bucky hums, not committing, but no longer arguing the point.

“Besides,” Steve says. “Lord Elrond has room to spare.”

Bucky gives him a look that reminds Steve of the only friction remaining in their suddenly simple lives, and Steve immediately regrets reminding him of how few elves now dwell in Imladris.

The argument goes like this: Bucky asks if Steve plans to travel with his people to Valinor. Steve admits he never had seriously considered the option. Bucky asks if he still feels the call West. Steve tells him it doesn’t matter. Bucky thinks he shouldn’t forsake his immortal life. Steve says that’s his own decision to make. Bucky insists. Steve refuses. Round and round they go, before giving up and settling down.

This time, Steve tries to stave off the argument before it can start. “I’m not the only elf who chooses to stay behind in Middle-earth,” he says. “And it’ll be many years yet before the eldar have left Middle-earth for good.”

“Many years...” Bucky repeats. “Vision told me I have ‘many years’ yet to live with this curse of shadow. Elrond tolerates a demi-wraith in his midst, but should I step fully over—”

“You won’t,” Steve says, punctuating his words with a kiss on Bucky’s hip. There’s a small square of naked skin peeking out from beneath the folds of his robes, where sunlight gathers in a warm pool. “And if you do,” another kiss, this time inhaling Bucky’s scent through his nose before he crawls further up Bucky’s length. “I’ll call down the light of Eärendil,” another kiss. “Find you,” another kiss. “And pull you back out again.”

Steve braces against the swan chaise, finally reaching Bucky’s lips with his own, and kisses his lover deeply before gently lowering on top of him. Bucky is so warm, so… _alive_. He’s impossible to resist, bathed in sunlight, scented like fresh silk. He wears mint oil in his long, dark hair. Bucky’s metal fingertips are smooth, and when they brush up against Steve’s ear, he shivers.

“Sorry,” Bucky breathes out. “Still getting used to it.”

“No,” Steve tells him, then kisses him again. “Don’t be sorry. I like it. Touch me again. Touch me _everywhere_.”

Bucky obliges, running one rough, calloused hand over Steve’s shoulder, then one smooth, metal palm down his back and up again. Bucky’s kisses are deep and hungry, and soon enough his robe has fallen open completely. Steve luxuriates in the thatch of dark hair that runs from Bucky’s navel to his sex, kisses and inhales the human’s musky scent as he works his way down between Bucky’s thighs. Elves are naturally hairless, smooth, and odorless. The richness of Bucky’s body adds so much texture to their intimacy, so many thrilling discoveries, so many pleasures. Steve takes Bucky into his mouth in a long, wet suck, and Bucky cries out in a broken gasp.

“S-Steve,” Bucky says, as a shiver runs down his body and into Steve. It makes Steve’s own body respond, almost desperately, and he has to use his own hand between his legs to free his straining sex. “Ah, Steve—” Bucky cuts himself off with a swallow, and his metal fingers clench in Steve’s short hair. The quick tug against his scalp is on the right side of pain and Steve moans with his mouth full. “So good,” Bucky murmurs. “It called to me. The wraith world. What if I— _ah!_ What if I can’t stop? Next time…”

Steve is so lost in the heat, so absorbed in satisfying his lover, that he doesn’t quite parse Bucky’s babbling at first. He slows down as it starts to make sense, then stops altogether. He carefully releases Bucky’s body from between his lips, and sits back as Bucky blinks in mild confusion.

As gently as he can manage, Steve asks, “What did you say?”

Bucky quickly looks away, then his mouth quirks up in a grin. Whatever sassy comment he’s conjured up fizzles out as Steve denies him with a shake of his head.

“Don’t,” Steve tells him. “You said the wraith world called to you. When?”

Bucky searches Steve’s face, perhaps looking for a crack in Steve’s resolve, but should have realized by now that Steve is impervious to his charms. Almost. When it’s important, anyway. Steve pokes the sun-warmed spot on Bucky’s hip. “Tell me.”

“Yes, alright,” Bucky says with a sigh, and straightens up, yanking his robes closed. “During the fight. I shadow stepped onto the top level, but it was more than that. To cover the distance of the entire courtyard, I… well, I stepped fully into the other side.”

Steve thinks back on what he knows of Bucky’s strange relationship with the wraith world, his innate ability to vanish within it and fight using the frigid air he manipulates from its depths. “I don’t understand.”

Bucky shrugs his metal shoulder. “I don’t fully either. The way it works is like…” He licks his lips as he searches for the right words. “The Nazgûl had been trapped there, decaying in their undeath while being kept alive only with the power of the Ring. It’s why they had no physical form. Why it took such power from Sauron to manifest them as riders in black in our world. But what I do, shadow stepping, I only touch the wraith world…”

Bucky trails off, reading whatever concern is showing up on Steve’s face as something worth giving the whole conversation up over. Steve struggles with this aspect of Bucky’s unnaturally long life, this nearness to the evil that almost destroyed them all. He swallows, trying to find the courage in his mission to protect Bucky’s happiness, to tend it like the warden he’s becoming. “Go on.”

Bucky doesn’t at first. Instead, he searches Steve's face as if he can sense the apprehension, but can’t quite pinpoint the source. Finally, he frowns in thought and tries again. “It’s like dunking your head under water. Only you can’t breathe under water, so you only go under for a few seconds before you pop back out again. Dive in,” Bucky says, angling the flat of his hand downward. “Then jump back out,” he adds, angling his fingers back up in a sweeping motion. “Only this time, you’re in a different position than when you started. It’s why I call it shadow stepping. It’s only a _step_. A temporary, partial visit. An inhale, without an exhale.”

“Okay,” Steve says, trying to follow. “So when you attacked Ultron… you were—”

“Exhaling. I stepped into the wraith world fully. Submerged myself. Walked inside and shut the door behind me. It’s so hard to put into words…”

“I think I understand,” Steve says. He doesn’t really, but he wants Bucky to know he’s trying. “So. It called to you. While you were there? Or even now?”

Bucky opens his mouth, then glances at Steve as if suddenly nervous. Perhaps Steve should ask only one question at a time. Bucky lowers his chin, as if anticipating disappointment before he confesses, “ _Every_ time I shadow step. It’s different now than it was before. Before I was skimming the surface, dragging it with me. Now… I feel like I leave a little piece of myself there each time.”

Steve has nothing to say to that at first. “So it calls to you? Like the way the edge of a wood calls when you see it from a nearby shore?”

Bucky’s look goes blank, then he cocks his head to the side and grins in unabashed victory. “So that’s what it feels like for an elf to hear the call of Valinor?”

Bucky’s ability to flip his emotions around, to go from a melancholic conversation of mortality to a rakish reminder of their lover’s spat is innately human, and one of the things he loves most about his human lover.

Steve wants to play along, wants to answer Bucky’s taunt with a smart comment of his own, until he finally realizes what it means. It is the sensation he feels, the constant call of the sea, to take the ships West on a final journey. To leave Middle-earth to the mortal races, forever. His Fëa is being constantly drawn there, bit by bit, his body no more than a slowly leaking vessel. “You’re diminishing,” he says.

Bucky clutches his own chest, as if he were fading out of sight right then and there and is trying to stop it. Steve covers his hand with his own, can feel Bucky’s heart beating through their entwined fingers.

“I think that it’s the same for me. We’re immortal, us Eldar. But here in Middle-earth, we are imperfect. That’s why the White Shores call us. We’re meant to return home, across the sea, where we will live our new lives. Eternal lives.” Steve nods, as the pieces fall into place. Bucky doesn’t look convinced so Steve continues. “Those of us who choose to stay. Myself. Prince Legolas. Lady Arwen. We will diminish over time. Fade from Middle-earth. If by sword or by unhappy chance our bodies are destroyed sooner, then we go to the Halls of Mandos and await judgement before we pass into Valinor. But to linger in Middle-earth forever? It’s not even possible to do so and withstand diminishing over time. What I am saying, my beloved. Is that it is a mortal life, after all.”

Bucky pulls his arms in around himself, flesh fingers absently tracing the filigree etched into the side of his metal forearm. “So we are the both of us diminishing?”

Steve nods. “Side by side.”

“How can you be so sure we walk the same path? How could a damned mortal ever follow a blessed elf?”

Steve laughs, because he has never felt so certain of anything before in his long life, and yet he knows there’s no proof of what he’s said. “Because,” he answers with a shrug. “I have faith in Eärendil. It’s the star of high hope, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for taking this trip through Middle-earth with me! I had an absolute blast watching lore videos, studying elvish, and watching those movies over and over (and over and over) again. Again, a huge thank you to my beta reader, Sno! And of course, this wouldn't be possible without the Stucky AU Big Bang, which kept me on task and committed to finishing this massive undertaking. Namárië mellonin!


End file.
